Interesting Links for 08-10-2012

[andrewducker]

• The Kissing Sailor, or “The Selective Blindness of Rape Culture”
  (tags: society history RapeCulture sex )
• Chatbots are still not able to pass the Turing Test, even though porn spammers are clearly working on it.
  (tags: ai turing chat im porn spam )
• How To Steal The Space Shuttle: A Step-By-Step Guide
  (tags: funny theft shuttle space )
• The Nazis

Comments

[henriksdal]

Everyone realises this is a full snog rather than a friendly French face kiss? I mean, come on people. If you wouldn't do it to your mother you bloody well shouldn't spring it on a stranger

[gwendally]

No, he shouldn't have.

Would you recommend prosecution for sexual assault?

If so, in what way do you think the world will be better?

If not, how do you defend your acceptance of "rape culture"?

[andrewducker]

Not all transgressions need arrest. I don't think I've heard _anyone_ he should be prosecuted.

[gwendally]

Wait, what, so now you think sexual assault doesn't require prosecution?

You are KILLING me here.

[steer]

There was lots of publicity about the whole "Ring of Brodgar" thing when I was in the Orkneys last week. Alas as I'm not particularly interested in neolithic things and had no time really to go do other kinds of tourism anyway, I confined my attention to it to saying "The Ring of BRODGAR" in increasing ludicrous fantasy narrator accents.

[andrewducker]

It does sound awesome.

I'm not massively into archeological things, but I am intrigued by bits of what we're learning - I'd love to know why _there_ for instance.

[xenophanean]

To join late, I suppose my take on it is that people seem to have missed the point of the argument, which is an interesting point, although the arguer has drastically over-egged the cake, putting this as a basis for assumptions, which it doesn't hold up

[marrog]

They're not condoning rape, they're being bloody ignorant, and need told.

They are condoning rape due to their ignorance and they need told that they're condoning rape

[xenophanean]

"They are condoning rape due to their ignorance and they need told that they're condoning rape."

No, they really aren't. They're helping to push society in a direction that arguably does, but this is *not* the same thing, and it's not a minor distinction.

And I think we're pretty much stuck there. I must admit, I kind of groaned when I realised I felt I had to reply. I understand your point of view, I even support what you're trying to do, I just debate some of the tactics.

[marrog]

They're helping to push society in a direction that arguably does, but this is *not* the same thing.I think maybe the issue here is that people are being polarised by reaching for clarity of message. I think you're right in that there's a big gap between people who say "Oh come on, it was just a kiss!" and rapists, and that those people would never say that rape is ever okay, or that they would say the same thing about that kiss if they found out that the soldier then dragged the stranger into a back alley with him. Perhaps they wouldn't even make excuses, as others have, for Roman Polanski ('she doesn't mind now, so why should we?' - something said of Greta with ref to that picture that also happens to be true of the girl Polanski raped) or Julian Assange ('they didn't call it assault at the time'). But these behaviours belong in the same cultural box. They're sympomatic of the same pervading attitude toward sex, sexuality and yes, sexual assault. Rape is only a subset of sexual assault - the worst subset for the most part obviously