Good morning, sunshines! Want to know what you missed while you were sleeping? Too bad, we're going to tell you anyway. Republicans are terrible at the internet. TERRIBLE. And now they have a real hip new video game , circa 1981, to really show them Democrats what's what. And yes, it's Atari-compatible. We think.
Aside from the fact that 'not backing down' is exactly what they 'accuse' Michael Brown of doing 'wrong' when confronted by authority, I find this line particularly poignant: "Well I know what's right, I got just one life"... considering that Mike Brown doesn't even have that anymore.
Targeting potential victims makes great commercial sense - your market is huge - but it makes terrible crime prevention sense, because it&#39;s not victims that are causing the problem, it&#39;s rapists. Now, it&#39;s certainly true the stats likely underrepresent the prevalence of date-rape drugs because some of them have quite short timescales on which they&#39;re detectable, and effects that make it unlikely the victim will report the incident within that timescale. But what the stats say (for example, <a href="" target="_blank">here</a>) is that most rapes are not drug-facilitated, and most drug-facilitated rapes involve alcohol not drugs like GHB or rohypnol. So, even if the product is 100% effective, and 100% of women use it on 100% of the drinks they have on 100% of the dates they go on, it will do nothing to stop most rapes. And none of those 100%s will happen.<br /><br /><br />On the other hand, changing the culture that <a href="" target="_blank">allows serial rapists</a> to operate with near impunity can make a big difference.
There is clearly the potential to prevent some rapes, and every rape is a horrible thing - drug-facilitated date-rape has a particular horribleness to it because it&#039;s especially unlikely to result in a successful prosecution.
The bad:
It feeds into a false narrative about where the biggest risks are. That false narrative already helps sexual predators both operate and escape justice.
There&#039;s also a danger it might add another twig to the fire of victim-blaming. &quot;If you weren&#039;t wearing RoofieWatch, you must&#039;ve been asking for it!&quot;. Although, that problem&#039;s already so bad it&#039;s hard to imagine there&#039;s room for it to get much worse.
I have a (completely unresearched) hunch that customers for such a product would skew towards more cautious personalities, so I doubt it would directly encourage much additional risky behavior, but that might also limit its usefulness. According to the studies mentioned in the second link above, most rapes are committed by repeat offenders. I have another hunch, also evidence-free, that repeat offenders likely try to avoid people with their guard up, at least in public.
It seems to me that date-rape-drug rapes should be expected to be way under-reported, because of the absence of memory thing. I tend to lean towards the idea that if the technology prevents N rapes, it doesn&#039;t matter if N is a small fraction of total rapes.
Also, on your victim-blaming hypotheical, this hardly rises to the level of &quot;If you were wearing shorts, you must have been asking for it&quot;. In fact, it can&#039;t even see that level.
It started out as a symbol for nuclear disarmament, but by the late 60&#039;s it had, in fact become the &quot;Peace&quot; symbol. At least where I lived.
Oh, for fuck&#039;s sake. I will fill in, even this late in the day. I mean, how fucking stupid are these people? There she is. Like all the millions of other sexy feminists of all genders. That&#039;s how you do it. Fuck.
And actually when you look at the details of the NCJRS link, I don&#039;t see good reasons to believe it would suffer significantly from under reporting. They preferentially categorized attacks as drug facilitated even if they also had elements of other modes of attack, and yet most rapes still were categorized as forcible and of the rest most were categorized as &quot;incapacitated&quot;. Ultimately you have to trust women to know the difference between &quot;I drank half a bottle of vodka and passed out&quot;, and &quot;I had one drink felt funny and don&#039;t clearly remember the rest of the night&quot;. And yet most drug facilitated attacks were described by victims as involving alcohol only - as you would expect, &quot;not sure&quot; was a big player in the remainder.
Thing is, rapists don&#039;t want to be caught, and administering drugs is a high risk moment for detection. Since most of them have apparently realized they don&#039;t need to take that risk, they don&#039;t do it.
Be careful not to wade <i>too</i> deeply into Chuckie Cheese&#039;s Twitterfeed... that way lies madness.
Yea, well Wilson doesn&#039;t change his oil every 3 months or 3000 miles, whichever comes first. So, ergo ipso facto!
&quot;I Won&#039;t Back Down&quot;?
These people are seriously irony-impaired.
Aside from the fact that &#039;not backing down&#039; is exactly what they &#039;accuse&#039; Michael Brown of doing &#039;wrong&#039; when confronted by authority, I find this line particularly poignant: &quot;Well I know what&#039;s right, I got just one life&quot;... considering that Mike Brown doesn&#039;t even have that anymore.
Targeting potential victims makes great commercial sense - your market is huge - but it makes terrible crime prevention sense, because it&#39;s not victims that are causing the problem, it&#39;s rapists. Now, it&#39;s certainly true the stats likely underrepresent the prevalence of date-rape drugs because some of them have quite short timescales on which they&#39;re detectable, and effects that make it unlikely the victim will report the incident within that timescale. But what the stats say (for example, <a href="" target="_blank">here</a>) is that most rapes are not drug-facilitated, and most drug-facilitated rapes involve alcohol not drugs like GHB or rohypnol. So, even if the product is 100% effective, and 100% of women use it on 100% of the drinks they have on 100% of the dates they go on, it will do nothing to stop most rapes. And none of those 100%s will happen.<br /><br /><br />On the other hand, changing the culture that <a href="" target="_blank">allows serial rapists</a> to operate with near impunity can make a big difference.
[Dammit, just noticed that reply-by-email ate my links before. Stats on drug-facilitated rape here: <a href="https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffi..." target="_blank">" rel="nofollow noopener" title="https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/219181...">https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffi... Discussion of studies identifying rapists here: <a href="http://yesmeansyesblog.word..." target="_blank">" rel="nofollow noopener" title="http://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/m...">http://yesmeansyesblog.word... ]
The good:
There is clearly the potential to prevent some rapes, and every rape is a horrible thing - drug-facilitated date-rape has a particular horribleness to it because it&#039;s especially unlikely to result in a successful prosecution.
The bad:
It feeds into a false narrative about where the biggest risks are. That false narrative already helps sexual predators both operate and escape justice.
There&#039;s also a danger it might add another twig to the fire of victim-blaming. &quot;If you weren&#039;t wearing RoofieWatch, you must&#039;ve been asking for it!&quot;. Although, that problem&#039;s already so bad it&#039;s hard to imagine there&#039;s room for it to get much worse.
I have a (completely unresearched) hunch that customers for such a product would skew towards more cautious personalities, so I doubt it would directly encourage much additional risky behavior, but that might also limit its usefulness. According to the studies mentioned in the second link above, most rapes are committed by repeat offenders. I have another hunch, also evidence-free, that repeat offenders likely try to avoid people with their guard up, at least in public.
It seems to me that date-rape-drug rapes should be expected to be way under-reported, because of the absence of memory thing. I tend to lean towards the idea that if the technology prevents N rapes, it doesn&#039;t matter if N is a small fraction of total rapes.
Also, on your victim-blaming hypotheical, this hardly rises to the level of &quot;If you were wearing shorts, you must have been asking for it&quot;. In fact, it can&#039;t even see that level.
Two out of three ain&#039;t bad. :&gt;[
It started out as a symbol for nuclear disarmament, but by the late 60&#039;s it had, in fact become the &quot;Peace&quot; symbol. At least where I lived.
Missouri must have some strange driver license laws regarding kids.
I may borrow &quot;tool majeur&quot; in future.
I was actually stopped by King of Morocco. There is a King of Morocco?
Altair or GTFO.
I felt the same way, for the same reason, about ten years ago (when I was around 56).
Oh, for fuck&#039;s sake. I will fill in, even this late in the day. I mean, how fucking stupid are these people? There she is. Like all the millions of other sexy feminists of all genders. That&#039;s how you do it. Fuck.
That was the kind of stretch I do.
Did I not make all those points myself?
And actually when you look at the details of the NCJRS link, I don&#039;t see good reasons to believe it would suffer significantly from under reporting. They preferentially categorized attacks as drug facilitated even if they also had elements of other modes of attack, and yet most rapes still were categorized as forcible and of the rest most were categorized as &quot;incapacitated&quot;. Ultimately you have to trust women to know the difference between &quot;I drank half a bottle of vodka and passed out&quot;, and &quot;I had one drink felt funny and don&#039;t clearly remember the rest of the night&quot;. And yet most drug facilitated attacks were described by victims as involving alcohol only - as you would expect, &quot;not sure&quot; was a big player in the remainder.
Thing is, rapists don&#039;t want to be caught, and administering drugs is a high risk moment for detection. Since most of them have apparently realized they don&#039;t need to take that risk, they don&#039;t do it.