naraburns
nihil supernum
No bio...
User ID: 100
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
Happy birthday to the Motte! If nothing else, it is a good time to remind myself that I am bad at predictions and should never play the prediction markets, because I didn't think we'd last this long. But here were are today, entering year four!
Just like last year, I will point out that the server costs continue to be borne by about 25 patrons, making us the Internet's leading (possibly only?) independent user-funded (ad-free!) open political speech forum.
As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.
(Proverbs 27:17)
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
A classic, to my mind. Honestly it's a rare case of the movie being even better than the source material, and the source material isn't bad! Sadly, the sequel didn't really do it for me, and it's a high water mark for Chloe Grace Moretz on film (though she has done some solid voice work since).
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
It's always interesting to me what people nominate (and what they don't). But I do think almost all nominated comments plausibly fall under one of the old "Slashdot Metamoderation" categories (Insightful/Interesting/Informative/Funny). My bet is that the people who nominated your comment found it informative.
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
After discussing this with other moderators, we are reducing your ban to "time served."
A couple of things, for you and for everyone:
First, other people's behavior is not, never has been, and never will be an excuse for your own. Directed invective like "you fucking asshole" is ban-on-sight behavior even if the other person did something to deserve it. This is pure heat. Use the "report" button instead.
Second, our moderators are generally pretty thick-skinned, and we usually avoid modding in a thread where we're participating. But sometimes users think that means it's open season on the mod team. This is not the case.
Finally, it seems to me that a combination of Internet-mediated communication and partially hidden information (specifically, some "user reports" on various comments, and some inter-user histories) combined here to create conversations that were effectively "garbled" by how they played out. This is one reason I personally try to avoid the "meta," if at all possible.
Anyway, I'd like to end the litigation of this here, and hope everyone is willing to cooperate with me on that.
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
These are definitely questions for @ZorbaTHut. However the "themes are not supported" message is probably there on the settings page for reasons like this one. I have no idea re: Patreon.
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
If you click your username at the top right (on a desktop web browser, not sure on phones), under "Settings" there is a "Website Theme" dropdown, which includes several different color schemes, including "dark."
First, culture war topics only in the culture war thread.
Second, this is not nearly enough effort even for a culture war thread, and it arguably violates our rule against consensus building (who is the "we" the recognizes "general facts" here)? "What will London look like in 30 years" is probably okay by itself in the Small Questions Sunday thread.
Third, a brand new account leading with white hot culture war material as its very first post? That's not getting through the filters, sorry. Maybe try participating in some existing conversations and get a feel for the rules and norms first?
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
It's sad that there's this misapprehension that girls are being kidnapped by abusers, when a huge number of runaway girls (something like 20%-40% in most studies) are fleeing sexual abuse in the home.
Right--I've seen other studies suggesting that a majority (perhaps more than 70%) of runaway girls experience some kind of sexual abuse, but I don't have access to the study to see whether they distinguish based on when and where that abuse occurred (i.e. prior to running away, or as a result of it).
Also, no small number of teens run away from home because they are addicted to drugs and their parents are trying to stop them from using. It really is an extremely multifaceted problem.
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
Sure, you might start here. Some tidbits:
In effect, the more disrupted the family, the greater the likelihood of running away. Youth living with both biological parents were least likely to run away, followed by those with at least one nonbiological parent, those with single mothers, and those in other family structures.
...
The finding that females were more likely than males to run away was unexpected given results from prior research showing that males are more likely than females to have spent the night in a shelter, public place, abandoned building, outside, underground, or in a stranger’s home. In that study, however, youth were not asked directly if they had run away, and some may have had other reasons for being away from home, such as family homelessness. It also is possible that female runaways are more likely to stay in locations not included as response options in that study, such as with a friend or acquaintance (sometimes known as “couch surfing”). Although perhaps less dangerous than other destinations, couch surfing still constitutes a risky environment for youth. Future research should investigate gender differences in patterns and contexts of runaway behavior.
In other words, there is some information available, but for the most part researchers aren't drawing the lines we're drawing here, which is what I mean when I suggest that the statistics on these things conflate a great many complicated and distinguishable events.
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
Either way, whenever teenage girls or boys run away from home, I'm assuming it's usually done on the initiative and with the support of an older man who's usually interested in her sexually, who may or may not be a pimp in reality.
This is definitely not true. Most runaways are going solo, or with the assistance of peers (including romantically involved peers). Pimps and predators are real, but far from common.
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
Applying this level of pedantic precision requires also rejecting as false the statement that "smoking causes cancer" because it not every smoker gets cancer or "summers are hotter than winters" because one July was January.
No--it would reject as false the statements "smoking always causes cancer" and "at no point during summer is it ever cooler than at any point in winter." Remember, you did not say "Violating a custody order is itself a sign of irresponsibility," but "no responsible adult would violate a custody order." Pedantic precision is a virtue, here.
The larger problem, though, as was already explained, was your lack of effort to explain and engage. If you want to talk about the "least enjoyable aspects of discussion on the internet" then "people who drop a low effort, single-sentence sneer instead of engaging the substance of your comment with a thoughtful and amicable reply" is not only high on the list, it's high enough that we have rules against it. This was explained to you, and you largely rectified the situation, which really would have been the end of it had you not also continued to defend your overstatement to multiple commenters, in persistently dismissive tone.
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
we ought to advise people against it
Sure. What you said was:
No responsible adult would violate a custody order.
This was false. You now seem to admit that it was strictly false, and that what you really meant was something much more reasonable, like "it's an extremely bad idea to violate a custody order." I don't know why you made such an obviously false statement to begin with, unless maybe you were trying to pick a fight. The comment improved substantially when you fleshed it out, but did so by retreating from your original claim.
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
EDIT to flush out:
It's "flesh out"--like filling out a figure that began only as bones (i.e. in outline).
Willfully violating a custody order will just get your ass thrown in jail and the custody order enforced and discredit further attempts to challenge it.
Sure, if you get caught in the wrong jurisdiction. But violating a custody order doesn't even have to be willful; often it is the result of a misunderstanding, or an emergency, or just panic. Even responsible adults can panic! That doesn't mean they aren't generally sufficiently responsible to care for a child.
This makes about as much sense as "if a police officer is violating your 4A rights, try to steal his pepper spray". I absolutely am not denying the predicate here: officers do sometimes step over the 4A, just that reacting in that way is straightforwardly counterproductive.
Again: only if it doesn't work out for you. Which it often won't! But there are literally times when your choice is "break the law now, and it will be bad, or don't break the law now, and it will be worse." In that case, it's not irrational or irresponsible to decide that "bad" beats "worse." That's the unfortunate nature of reality. The police are not invincible, the courts are not infallible, the law is not incontestable. I wouldn't, as an attorney, encourage a client to ever violate a custody order! But I can imagine, as a parent, circumstances that might demand it of me.
children who have voluntarily run away with strangers
You have to wonder just what % of such strangers are not pederasts or pedos.
I mean, presumably most of them are. But what does that amount to? The article I linked suggests that more than 95% of "missing children" cases are runaways, but it is not clear what percent of those run away with someone else. If a 15-year-old runs away with her 16-year-old boyfriend, that often seems to get dropped into the same statistical bucket as a 6-year-old getting snatched off the street, or a 12-year-old who gets removed from an abusive home by her own mother or father violating a custody order. The numbers get turned into a narrative of rampant child endangerment, but the reality is more complicated than that.
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
letting pedophiles run rampant
It feels to me like 1985 all over again.
Thanks to a legal system that often fails to draw (and often fails to even attempt to draw) a distinction between children who have been kidnapped by strangers, children who have voluntarily run away with strangers, and children who have simply been moved by a responsible adult but in violation of a custody order, it's nigh impossible to say for certain how many pedophiles are out there snatching kids... but "run rampant" does not appear supported by the evidence. I am... skeptical, let's say... that the people "working for free to rid their platforms of predators" should be allowed to do that, because I suspect there are many, many more vigilantes (and aspiring vigilantes) out there doing real and serious harm, than actual child-snatching pedos.
Of course we needn't get all the way to child-snatching; simply exposing children to various forms of degeneracy probably has long-term psychological impacts that are worth considering. But the research on this seems to be hopelessly muddied by culture war matters; moral panic over children's media exposure reaches all the way back to Plato (at least!). I expect we are all shaped by the media we consume, but not always in the most obvious or expected ways.
I would also posit that many a cat-caller does it not just because they think someone is hot, but because they enjoy the fact they get to flex "power" over someone by making them uncomfortable with no recourse against them (dovetails nicely with everyone's discussion about lower class men, they don't get to flex power often).
I'm not especially sympathetic to the "sex as a power trip" narrative, but assuming it is basically correct--isn't women dressing in revealing clothing also often an opportunity for them to enjoy flexing their power over men? I think maybe part of what leads you here--
I'm unconvinced cat calling should be an indictable offense, but comparing it to skimpy clothing is ridiculous.
--is a background Western assumption that men have power, and that power is what men have. I occasionally see feminists (especially, "sex positive" feminists) move past this decidedly mid-20th century "Second Sex" narrative into a more postmodern, Foucaultian "women's power is different" narrative. Men may dominate physically, but women dominate socially; men may gatekeep the levers of action, but women gatekeep the levers of status. Occasionally in these "catcalling debates" women will decide to flip the script and start catcalling men; this never works out because men love this shit. Not the truly aggressive and negative stuff--honking at pedestrians, shouting insults--that might well get you punched in the face! But "CHECK THE GUNS ON THIS GUY" is going to put a smile on his face for days.
Putting on a skimpy swimsuit is the psychologically female equivalent of a man looming over someone and saying, "hey, you wanna feel my muscles?"
And sure, you might not find this totally persuasive, but I think it's a long way from ridiculous. Except in the sense that ridicule itself is a way of socially signaling; countenancing the idea that women may have just as much power over men, as men have over women--just in different ways and contexts--is very low status, at present! It's the kind of thing you might expect to hear some "beta cucks huffing as copium," in the parlance of the iPad youths.
Finally, while I agree that society is teaching and reinforcing women to be far more paranoid than is warranted, the Venn diagram between "is willing to break social norms by cat calling" and "is willing to go for a cheeky bottom pinch or other form of personal assault" has overlap, there is a small but credible possibility of violence from that person. The Venn diagram of "has ass out in Lululemon" and "will grab your dick through your shorts" is 0, unfortunately.
The Venn diagram between "is willing to ask you out" and "is willing to rape you at the first opportunity" has overlap, too. Women are wise to be cautious of men! That's clearly true, and surely of importance in this discussion. One of the reasons I started it is because, like other posters have more explicitly suggested, I think there is a kind of person who will feel unsure about the Surrey stings until they see the color of the perpetrator's skin! Or two kinds, if we want to separate them out--people who will only be mad if this is enforced against non-whites and immigrants, and people who will only be mad if it is enforced against native whites outside otherwise-criminally-problematic neighborhoods. As an anti-identitarian I think both of these perspectives are avoiding a real substantive issue, namely, the regulation of interpersonal behaviors in public spaces shared between individuals with diverse and not entirely compatible interests. Likewise, treating women's interests in public space interaction as weightier than men's interests in the same, is identitarian rather than appropriately considerate of all the issues involved.
(One solution some cultures implement is to simply segregate the disparate interests; men from women, white from black, whatever. That is a workable solution in many cases but the West has rejected it, and as a liberal myself I think it is both possible and desirable for people with disparate interests to share public spaces without significant conflict. So I set this solution aside, but I know not everyone does.)
Somewhere downstream from catcalling is a slightly different thing: the cold open. Most people here are not old enough to remember the Clinton years, but a phrase that got kicked around a lot (with direct reference to Clinton's own behavior) was, "it doesn't hurt to ask!" Meaning: the First Amendment protects men asking women if they'd like to go out on a date--or even have sex! Even if those women are strangers! Even if 99.995% of women are going to say no!
We don't seem to actually live in that world anymore; we punish men for even asking, in almost any setting, and so they have in many cases just stopped asking. Norms are forcing these conversations out of almost every environment, onto dating apps that optimize for something other than flourishing. All in the interest of preventing women from ever being put in an uncomfortable position in public--while allowing them to put men into uncomfortable positions through comparable, albeit not identical, practices, like dressing provocatively* while immune from any kind of interpersonal or societal response.
*I here leave aside the tiresome conversations about what counts as provocative, as of course different cultures will have inculcated different views on the matter; as a rule, people know what "sexy" clothing is for people in their sociocultural environment, even if they try to ignore the actual biological implications of the word "sexy."
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
Please remember that this is not PoliticalCompassMemes; pointing and laughing in the style of Nelson Muntz invites only heat, not light.
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
I think it's more an active vs passive thing.
I think you're definitely supposed to think about it this way, in connection with women's dress at minimum, but I also think this simply doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Catcalling is no more active a choice than wearing a bikini, especially with the intent to wear it somewhere conspicuous (i.e. not at the beach, although even at the beach a bikini can be pretty damn conspicuous). You are no more forced to listen to catcalls than you are forced to look at someone in a bikini--though you may not be able to initially prevent yourself from hearing the first or seeing the second, you can always respond to either by plugging your ears or closing your eyes. The idea that catcalling is somehow more "intrusive" doesn't make any sense; we're talking about people sharing public spaces, and finding the proper balance allowing that space to be used by everyone for the activities they prefer. Why does a man's preference for catcalling rank below a woman's preference against it? The answer can't be "intrusiveness" because we actually often want intrusiveness to be a feature of shared public spaces--for example, political protests are deliberately intrusive, and lose their effect when they are not at least somewhat intrusive.
(I think the most likely answer, as others have noted, is probably just "public hetero male horniness is a low class signal," and nobody wants to speak for the interests of horny low class males, who are also often criminal elements, undesired immigrants, the uneducated, the antisocial, etc. Plus I suspect that many men who can keep their mouths shut would like the catcallers to stop, simply because living in a culture where women regularly go out in public half naked is something many heterosexual men prefer, and quietly enjoy.)
Part of this may be a "noncentral fallacy" problem, too--honking your car's horn at a pedestrian when there's no actual danger is a very obnoxious thing to do quite regardless of whether it is part of "catcalling" someone. Whereas wolf whistling is not coded as threatening (though some women take it that way, and seem to think every woman should, even though this is actually fairly paranoid on their part). To use some other examples of obnoxious public behavior, carrying around a protest sign with graphic imagery of aborted babies is gross. It's surely as "intrusive" as someone yelling sloppy compliments in your direction. "Well you don't have to look at it" doesn't really acknowledge the depth of discomfort many people experience when seeing such imagery.
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
It just seems like pointless horniness.
But then again, I also don’t see the appeal of a strip club so maybe there’s a whole psychology of looking but not touching I don’t share.
Yeah, I don't know. But to try to steelman it, maybe--imagine you're an audience member at a beauty pageant or a fashion show. (Yeah, I don't get beauty pageants or fashion shows, either, but they're definitely a thing!) You see all the work these models have put into their poise, their dress, their movements, their facial expressions... so you cheer! Cheering is surely a thing at beauty pageants (I admit I'm assuming here). You're expressing your appreciation and admiration. Indeed, isn't it perfectly natural, even polite, to express your appreciation and admiration for someone like that?
Well, some people just... aren't that smooth with their cheering!
Or to take it up another level, have you ever deliberately tried to provoke a smile from someone? Maybe an angry child, or a grumpy friend? Maybe you took it as a kind of personal test, a self-imposed challenge of sorts... so maybe catcallers are thinking, maybe unrealistically, "I bet I can get a smile out of that girl." And in some cases, should they fail, they might feel ashamed by that, and lash out instead--"oh, too stuck up for a smile, girl?"
These are surely not the most artful approaches, I'm trying to steelman and I'm still not coming up with highly sympathetic actors, here, but I think there are many analogous behaviors out there. I don't really understand catcalling but there's a lot of irrational human behavior I don't understand (professional sports!) and most of it doesn't get you a dressing down from your local Bobby.
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
In essence, though, whether we're talking about catcalling, or panhandling, or various other things associated with homelessness, what we're really talking about is obnoxious behavior that occurs in public, and the right to be obnoxious in public.
I agree. I think in some of the conversation downthread this is getting teased out further. Actual physical contact is (generally) an easier line to draw; when it comes to things like offensive clothing, nauseating smells, vulgar music, horrifying imagery, etc. people often have very strong but not very consistent opinions about what should or shouldn't be allowed, and what constitutes an appropriate response or deterrent.
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
With catcalling, it seems to me pretty unreasonable in 2025 to imagine catcalling might be welcome, so even if a given catcaller wishfully thinks it will be taken as flattery, British society has (arguably) reached a point where the only response to this is 'Give me a break, pal'
I think this is probably close to correct (obviously from these articles, there is a meaningful percentage of British society that presumably hasn't reached this point, as they still engage in catcalling), but is rather my point about being in psyop territory. Convincing everyone to believe that catcalling should be perceived as negative seems to be the actual goal of these "stings," not because it was democratically decided that catcalling is in fact negative, but because certain people genuinely don't like it and they don't want anyone else to like it, either, or be subjected to it as a result of others liking it.
As I suggest in my original post, I don't really understand catcalling and regard it as at best inconsiderate. But I also don't like it when the government and news media collude to nudge people's values around instead of having an honest conversation about controversial-but-not-to-everyone behaviors.
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
It's just harder to establish an intent
Right, so, one of the things I allude to in my original post is that this bit is really vague in UK law, as best I can tell. Sometimes it seems like "harassment" under UK law requires specific and directed intent, but sometimes not. And even when intent is required, the kind of intent is usually something like "intent to cause distress or shame." But of course screaming "NICE GAMS," while it might very well cause embarrassment to the admiree, is perfectly consistent with intending to make a woman feel good about herself, rather than to cause distress or shame. So when you say--
The catcaller is manifestly trying to get a specific woman's attention and prevent her from going about her business undisturbed
--this seems at least half mistaken. The catcaller wants to get someone's attention to pay her a compliment, albeit perhaps a compliment she'd rather not receive. (Is it also "catcalling" to yell putative insults at a woman, e.g. "whore" or "slut?" I think maybe this also would qualify as catcalling, but then the vulgarity and more aggressively threatening content of the speech seems to more clearly establish hostile intent.) Disturbing her "business" does not seem to be a necessary (or indeed generally intended) aspect of catcalling.
Likewise, UK law seems to think that you can direct harmful intent without a specific target in mind--for example, using PSPOs to forbid people from protesting near abortion clinics. Merely holding a sign that says "abortion is murder" near an abortion clinic need not be done with any intent to impinge on any specific individual. Likewise, wearing a diaphanous string bikini to walk around a busy pedestrian area need not be done with any intent to impinge on any specific individual, and yet a reasonable person might well find it an alarming sight--and doubt that it was done with anything less than mischievous intent.
naraburns
nihil supernum
4mo ago
I'm not sure whether this is your point, but if I were the kind of person to take that particular Biblical edict seriously, I would likely be in favor of laws that discouraged other people from behaving in ways that might tend to inspire rebelliousness in my extremities.
I guess I can imagine being of a puritan mindset where I would want to suppress feelings of being attracted out of shame, or out of a strong moral view on female virtue, and therefore would prefer form-fitting clothing be kept away from me wherever possible. Is that where you're going with this, or something else?
The example I provided was a picture of women in full niqab. My experience with men from countries where niqab is common is that they are often extremely distressed by the comparatively immodest dress of Western women. Traces of that remain in most Western regimes, too, though usually limited to the exposure of genitals (and sometimes breasts) being treated as legitimately "distressing" to display.
(Fun fact: Australia used to require protruding labia to be removed from pornographic displays, so even in contexts where it was legal to display female genitalia, it was not legal to do so with complete anatomical accuracy! I have seen it argued that this may have contributed to the rise of cosmetic labiaplasties.)
I do think there is highly significant asymmetry of discomfort between a woman being catcalled and a pious man seeing some legging-clad ass
This seems super culturally mediated, though--I'm not sure I'm in a good position to just tell a pious Muslim or devout Amish that his feelings about bikinis simply don't count the way that a modern woman's feelings about wolf whistles does.
a fairly significant difference between actively getting into someone's space by catcalling them and just being seen by them as you go about your own business
I'm not sure I see how catcalling "actively get[s] into someone's space," which is why I noted that provided the 18 arrests were made for actual assault rather than mere catcalling, there's less to complain about here. The realm of "offensive speech" and unwilling audiences is a fascinating one for legal theorists precisely because what counts as "invading" someone's "space" in public is really tricky. Our bodies are an easy place to draw a line: unwanted physical contact is bad! Our senses are much more complicated. How is dressing provocatively any different from speaking provocatively, from the perspective of the unwilling audience? Are our ears more important than our eyes, somehow? "You can just look away!"--or--"you can just plug your ears!" There seem to be a lot of unstated assumptions in the assertion that there is a "significant" difference between catcalling and parading around in provocative clothing.
("But you shouldn't think of something like exercise clothing as sexually provocative!" "No, you shouldn't think of something like catcalling as provocative!" Etc.)
To the best of my understanding, that is not actually a function of the site--maybe leftover code from rDrama? I would need @ZorbaTHut to say more about that.
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