Women's Issues

They actually do notice false reports. Over the course of a police investigation, the reported facts don't line up with the evidence. There might be holes in the reported testimony. Self-contradictory testimonies. Stories that change with each telling.

It's very hard to lie believably, to keep the invented story straight over the course of a police investigation, and to make the story line up with all evidence uncovered. False reporting is provable, and is also a felony.

EDIT: The problem, as Zeal has noted, is that there's a lot of overlap between false reports and women who were legitimately raped but retracted their testimony under pressure.

edited 1st Apr '14 8:41:23 AM by TobiasDrake

Yeah I know a case of a false report and the whole thing fell apart pretty quickly once it was actually being investigated professionally (it helped that the girl cracked and admitted to lying the moment the police got involved).

Also I'd note that the Appeal to Worse Problems page specifically states that the fallacy adds the false claim "That it is not possible to care about big and small problems simultaneously.", however that isn't false when you're talking about effort/money instead of just care, it may be possible for a group to care about both issues, but it's not possible for a group to use the same resources twice. Valuable resources are being used to run a campaign against a relatively small problem in a way that causes a lot of collateral damage, they could and (I think) should be spent on running a campaign against a bit problem (like the idea that men can't be raped/women can't rape) in a way that doesn't cause a load of collateral damage and helps reduce the collateral damage of another good campaign (the DBT Guy campaign).

Also, no Lampy I'm not using IE, but I will roll for San due to having managed to summon cthulhu.

I've actually heard a story that remains completely consistent is a sign of it being false, because as human beings are imperfect, especially in pressed situations, what you remember may not be consistent over the course of an investigation.

But as I said, the (main) problem isn't when it's provable. It's when it isn't.

@Zeal: Not entirely sure what you mean, or how you interpret what I wrote.

The argument I responded to had an "A + B => C" structure. My saying "both sucks" about A was saying the argument on its own is false. It's not right to categorically say a victim of rape is worse off than a victim of a false accusation. Nor the reverse. Net gain/loss and counting number of victims is irrelevant for that particular argument.

The second part, B, was about the amount. But it was about the amount of rape, not the amount of reports of rape. Since the campaign was not about amount of rape, but rather the amount of reports of rape, the latter would be more accurate in the situation. It's related to the false equivalence mentioned previously.

Basically, I disagreed with the reasoning, but not necessarily the result. In this case, the number of false reports seems small enough that it would be more problematic to reduce the number of total reports. If you lower the threshold for reporting, you also lower the treshold for reporting falsely, but in this situation I think that's an acceptable loss. Which, if you notice, is somewhat contrary to the campaign's stated goal.

Does that make it more clear?

@Silasw: Appeal to Worse Problems does indeed not apply when it's about limited resources. However, people are free to spend resources on what they please, so limited resources isn't really a question here, unless you want to dictate how other people spend their time and money.

My point was that the TBTG campaign does more harm than good, not that the problem it tries to tackle is not worth considering. But if I try to solve a hunger problem in Somalia by murdering everyone in China and stealing their food, I'm doing more harm than good. Opposing such a campaign doesn't mean I'm for starving people in Somalia it means I'm opposed to killing Chinese people. The campaign harms more women than it helps men, both in quantity and quality. It's not that we should not help men but we should not do it in ways that harms other people even more.

I would prefer a gender neutral campaign myself but answering a slightly faulty campaign with an even worse one is not a way to solve problems. They should have made a gender neutral campaign to show how it's done right. That would actually help people.

Yeah, I basically agree with your point, just not your reasoning as stated in that post.

Well, I'd argue about the quality bit, depending on what you mean by it. I find it better for one man to not be falsely judged than for one woman to get a conviction on her perpetrator. If it's one woman raped, on the other hand, it's in that more equivalent zone.

Reason being, if you've been raped, it doesn't matter if you report it or not; you've still been raped, and getting a conviction on that is only part of the healing process (for some it helps a lot; for others it's actually worse due to the entire process). Point is, the damage is already done.

And I'm not sure you'd do more harm than good in that case of Somalia/China, because China has a population issue. Cannibalism — the solution to both hunger and overpopulation problems at the same time!

Damage may be done, but not all damage is the same.

And you don't get to quantify that damage or not.

Don't you mean qualifying? Quantifying is easy. A 10% reduction of rape is quantifyable.

No one can scientifically measure, calculate, and numerically pinpoint just how much damage a rape has done, let alone compare that supposed figure against another rape.

It's asinine.

In addition to the other points already made about this, getting a conviction does more than just help the victim. It prevents further victimization of other women. If no conviction is gotten, then there is a rapist walking around free, and rapists tend to commit rape.

edited 1st Apr '14 10:54:37 AM by TobiasDrake

Not sure what you're arguing here, since I haven't made any qualitative judgement on it other than "it sucks", and that it's (generally speaking) on a higher scale than getting someone judged for their crime.

Fair point, though that's in a different scope than I was speaking of.

edited 1st Apr '14 10:56:12 AM by AnotherDuck

I agree. But that is about the quality of rape, no? Quantifying would just be how much rape there is, qualifying would be how much damage it does to the victims.

Uggg... please no... please....

Talking about how to quantify "The quality of rape" is making me sick... just dont... please... dont.

do you know how offensive that is to victims...

"You didn't bleed much: so, your rape wasn't as bad, thus not a 'proper' rape — you're going into the assault pile"... yeah-no. No. Uh-uh.

Terrible idea. -_-

No one's talking about that.

edited 1st Apr '14 10:59:29 AM by AnotherDuck

Duck, sure they get to pick how they use their resources, but my point is that if they want to be consider a true campaign for men's rights rather than a bunch of women-haters masquerading as one they need to focus on the issues that do the most harm to men, not the issues that give them the greatest chance to stick it to feminists.

Plus what X6 ( everywhere) just said, putting a rapist away tends to be a good way of preventing them from committing further rapes (though going by prison rape statistics it's not that good a way...).

edited 1st Apr '14 11:03:51 AM by Silasw

True, but that's not about logical fallacies.

We were arguing about logical facilities? I was arguing that the campaign is a terrible thing and exposes the group carrying it out as women-haters who are just using MRA as an excuse rather than people who actually care about men's rights.

Yes Lampy, I know what I'm going to do...

Appeal to Worse Problems and such? Well, it doesn't really matter. I definitely agree that they could've done better, even for the purpose they state as their intention. I think their main intention wasn't the campaign itself, though, but to stir up debate about it and the other one.

NO! You cannot say rape sucks more or less than a false conviction.

You cannot compare traumas like that!

(swats you with a rolled up newspaper)

You do not get to decide how much pain someone feels! Nope not going there.

I wasn't? I basically said that both suck, which is a terse phrasing meant to imply that nothing more needs to be said about it.

Ah. Would make sense. I'm used to people, especially in these threads, talking to me like I'm making arguments I don't make.

edited 1st Apr '14 11:34:52 AM by AnotherDuck

I'd say it's more that I have a set standard that I believe a group must meet if they want me to consider them a help rather than a hindrance to the movement (if they should value my opinion is a separate debate).

Also I'm pretty sure Gab is talking to Antiteilchen, not you Duck.

Yes, they were trying to quantify the quality rape duck....

Just read up, your rapidly degrading what credibility you have, by claming things hat did happen did not, and arguing in favor of a victim blaming campaign targeted at an enemy that does not exist.

:/

I interpreted what went on above as miscommunication. Not sure what you mean with the rest.

Direct Quotes copied and pasted:

Well, I'd argue about the quality bit, depending on what you mean by it. I find it better for one man to not be falsely judged than for one woman to get a conviction on her perpetrator. If it's one woman raped, on the other hand, it's in that more equivalent zone.

Reason being, if you've been raped, it doesn't matter if you report it or not; you've still been raped, and getting a conviction on that is only part of the healing process (for some it helps a lot; for others it's actually worse due to the entire process). Point is, the damage is already done.

Not sure what you're arguing here, since I haven't made any qualitative judgement on it other than "it sucks", and that it's (generally speaking) on a higher scale than getting someone judged for their crime.

No. I was talking to the duck.

edited 1st Apr '14 11:50:23 AM by Gabrael

Edit: never mind

edited 1st Apr '14 11:52:16 AM by Antiteilchen