In addition, if they're paying extra for the upgrades needed to carry their real-time traffic, doesn't that benefit the rest of the customers who don't need real-time as much right now?
Possibly. I'm just a suspicious sort. This requires further information which no-one outside the company will have, to know whether it is good or bad in practice. It could easily be either.
Well that answers what the US has done to Iran, but not so much the other way around. Okay...
Let's start with the storming of the US embassy and hostage taking, and go from there, shall we?
Your starting point is the seizing of the US embassy during a revolution when the US had just seized Iranian assets, was supporting the dictator of the country and when there are peristent rumours that the embassy in question was containing rather more than diplomatic staff. Now, as you say, let's go on from there and see what other crimes Iran has perpetuated on the US people. The floor is yours...
Heh, Iran and Iraq was at war for 8 years in the 1980s including chemical warfare. Saddam was no friend of Iran either, for as long as he was in power.
Saddam was no friend of the Iraqi people either. Remember that though the government was secular, there was still a general state of Sunni domination over the Shiite majority (+Kurds). You'd better believe that the Iraqi people today are more inclined to side with Iran than the US. The Sunnis not so much, but the Shiite, yes. I'm not saying the countries are going to merge or anything stupid like that, but Iran is a more natural ally to Iraq (culture, strategic aims, geographical proximity) than the US is (different culture, wrecked your country, helped set up the previous dictator, sold you out during the Kuwait war, threatens your popular leaders, forces your government to sign hugely partial oil-export deals, occupies the country militarily, forces its laws upon you, forbids local companies and workers from bidding on contracts to re-build their own country, the list goes on...). Nah, the big fear of the US during the post-war occupation was that Iraq would lean toward a close relationship with Iran.
And him alone I wouldn't worry much about either, what I do fear is if he manages to trigger some sort of christian-muslim war instead of just Iraq vs Israel or whatever.
The vast majority of muslims (remember there are about 2 billion world wide) just want to get on with their lives the same as everybody else. Whatever religious rhetoric gets thrown about, war or peace will happen based on real-world cost-benefit. Israel is the elephant in the china shop and if they get involved... it will result in a huge amount of death and misery for the whole region.
Don't disagree with the gist of your argument, but just want to say that the Russians aren't going to sell Iran nuclear warheads. That's too big and gives up Russia's powerful bargaining position in the area. What Russia has threatened to do and which Iran would love, is for Russia to sell them some modern anti-aircraft defence systems. Right now, Israel can credibly threaten to bomb Iran (and has threatened). If Russia follows through and sells them modern systems then Israels ability to threaten is somewhat reduced.
Well they arrested some US soldiers that were bouncing around in their coastal waters and then, er, gave them back a few days later after questioning.
Okay, seriously? They've not done anything much, it's that they exist. First off, they're too big to easily threaten and they also have means of responding - for example, they could seal the Strait of Hormuz which would majorly fuck up the US's oil supplies. Secondly, unless Russia helps out, you can't impose serious sanctions on them. End result: A country that doesn't have to do what you tell it to. And that's a big problem when you want to dominate the area. For example, Iran is primarily Shiite. So is a large proportion of the population of Iraq which is next door. Therefore it is natural for the nation of Iraq to form close ties with Iran. For another example, Israel has a policy of being the baddest bastards in their region and being able to threaten everyone else as their security policy. Again, Iran is large, powerful and getting better equipped every day. If Russia ever agrees to sell them modern air-defence weapons, then Israel's ability to bomb the fuck out of the country is severely diminished. If they ever get a nuclear weapon, then Israel will have to treat them as a military equal.
Basically, Iran is a "big kid". And that's a problem for the other "big kid" in the playground which is the US-Israelli bloc. The latter want to dominate the area, but so long as there's someone who isn't easy to push around, then the littler kids have someone they can maybe hide behind or try to become friends with. The US and Israel want themselves to be the only game in town. Iran, unless it can be kept down, means that there's another.
Did you read the context in the previous sentence? I was posing a question and giving an indirect answer
Sorry, but you wrote in a stand alone paragraph quite emphatically: "The decision not to rape comes from the desire not to hurt others or, as a fallback, the worry that you might get caught. That is all."
If you want to re-phrase it that "the only reason someone who wants to rape another person doesn't is because...", then fine. It's not what I got from your post and I think most people read it the same way.
This is a feminist fantasy which implies that two people suddenly want to have sex with each other with equal gusto precisely at the same time and for the same duration, and that sex is hardly about one fantasising and persuading the other.
I don't know why you're suddenly talking about "feminist fantasy". Men, women, chicks with dicks... everyone gets the same basic rights. You seem to be going off on some tangent about people wanting precisely the same sex at precisely the same time for precisely the same duration and the only "this" that I can work out that you're referring to as a "feminist fantasy" seems to be the quote you specifically took and responded to which was merely that sex should be willing on both parties. (Or 'all' parties. Lets keep our options open, here.;) ). Your hyperbole about precise and identical ideas is an argument ad absurdem. You seem to be extrapolating "one persuading the other" as the end of a spectrum that has seduction at one end and rape at the other. NO! This is not a spectrum. The moment forced sex or the threat of forced sex comes into play, you're talking about something very different. It is not some "feminist fantasy" to expect mutuality in sex. That is the default for healthy people.
Sex occurs for a lot of reasons, and I have yet to read evidence that "because both people/animals simultaneously suddenly became equally physically and emotionally enthusiastic" is the major reason.
Now I start to think you have serious issues. Firstly, how about we don't suddenly broaden the discussion to be about the entire animal kingdom. Let's just stick to the reasoning beings known as homo sapiens that we were discussing. Your attempt to invoke other species for an implied 'man is an animal and this is how he thinks because other species do things in way X' gambit has no basis. We can talk solely about humans here and are doing so. If you can't make an argument based on the humans, don't try and muddy the waters to disguise that.
Secondly, stop using extremes to try and invalidate things. I talked about mutual consent. You start talking about "suddenly becoming equally physically and emotionally enthusiastic". You're not getting this crap from anything I said, so stop making strawmen. For reference, one person being in the mood and getting another person in the mood happens all the time. The only connection this has to rape is in your head where it appears you see them as variations on the same mindset. I.e. you see sex not as a mutual activity but a battle in which one party extracts intercourse from the other with rape and seduction being merely the forceful or the trickery method respectively. If that's how you think then seek help, because honest flirtation is neither. And that's not "feminist fantasy", that's how most people think.
I imagine a lot of men want a prostitute they go with to act like they're enjoying it.
I don't know. Why do you imagine this? It seems odd to project your claimed sexual ideals on others. Do you look at porn? Does it bother you that the woman almost certainly has no interest in you beyond the payment you'll offer to her / her employer?
Firstly, they're not my sexual "ideals", they're my sexual tastes. Your use of the former word implies you think they're something I aspire to, or perhaps think I ought to want.
Not very woot, no. Basically, the ISP is sending the message to customers that if you're doing something other than gaming, they're going to treat you like a second class citizen. And the priority you get is only relative to their other traffic so it doesn't mean that their 'first class' is any better than another company's 'standard'.
Sounds like a company I'll avoid.
Owing to the plaudits he's received from a large number of people who, like him, don't understand right and wrong, he's got a big head right now, and it's not keeping him from acting on his other character flaws, as this story indicates.
So based on your personal opinion that his actions are wrong and your statement that he's got a big ego despite not knowing him (I presume), you have decided that the accusations are true and he's a rapist, "as this story indicates". I see something wrong with that.
That doesn't refute my point. You said the only two reasons why one wouldn't commit rape are a desire not to hurt another and a fear of being caught. I offered a third which is that many of us would get no joy out of intercourse where our partner got no satisfaction. That the third doesn't apply to everyone no more makes it a non-existent reason than that your two reasons don't apply to everyone.
Secondly, I imagine a lot of men want a prostitute they go with to act like they're enjoying it. Even if that is partly or wholely faked, it's still something you're not going to get with rape.
Nor do I like either of those. I'm just stating the facts. I've been close friends with both people who were rape victims and one who was the victim of a false accusation (it was a case of consensual sex re-defined after the act when a boyfriend found out). The former were undoubtedly more harmed than the falsely accused person, but the latter didn't have an easy time of it either. He was a pretty clueless person in some ways, but a nice guy, and didn't even know what was going on for around two weeks, just that everyone was shunning him. Eventually a female friend clued him in on what people were saying about him. The end result was that it did him a lot of harm, not least of which just the shock of being accused of it, the big irony being he'd really liked her and thought she'd really liked him (which she appeared to until it became inconvenient. The two rape victims I was particularly close to were very damaged by the experience, one in particular.
Basically, I guess I'm saying two wrongs don't make a right and you can't allow a presumption either way. You say that without physical evidence rape can't be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. That's incorrect. Firstly, it can be shown sometimes by physical evidence in conjunction with other evidence. Force leaves a mark - bruises at the wrist, back the head, whatever. They don't prove anything themself, but in the right circumstances they support the case. Likewise, if someone accuses another of rape and there aren't such indications, well that doesn't mean there was no rape, but if they said that they resisted in their testimony and there's no such signs or the finger marks were lined up wrong and suggested they'd been self-inflicted for example, that would be significant. It's just not what the GP described in saying that forensic science could prove whether rape took place or not. A random assault on the street by a stranger is a lot easier to prove beyond a reasonable doubt a lot of the time than someone who is a regular partner, or if you chose to go home with someone and then changed your mind part way.
As I said, I don't like either of your options myself, I'm just stating the fact that it can be impossible to prove such things sometimes.
The decision not to rape comes from the desire not to hurt others or, as a fallback, the worry that you might get caught. That is all.
It is not all. It also comes from the desire for sex being one of mutual involvement. Even if your partner wasn't forced to have sex, but was doing it for some other reason such as to repay a favour, pity or apathy... would you really want to have sex with someone who wasn't interested / enjoying it? I wouldn't.
But Assange isn't about the legal way of doing things. He's about the sensational way of doing things.
When you want to publicise information, the sensational way of doing things is the effective way of doing things. The deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan are happening now. You want someone to go to a foreign government (the US) and spend a few years and a lot of money appealing to a foreign legal system asking it to incriminate itself?
The Swedish courts can't do things like that. They can decide on prison sentences, community service, fines, and a few other things, but they can't forbid someone from using Internet, or make up new types of punishment on the fly.
I don't. But it was obvious from the start that Wikileaks is against enemy willing to fight dirty. How to defend? Maybe by not appointing Assange's successor - instead going for completely decentralized structure without any visible point man to attack
Decentralisation of control is usually a good thing. No argument there. But inevitably some people are going to need to stick their head above the parapet and become a spokesperson. For now that seems to be Julian Assange. Also keep in mind that doing so is sometimes a safety measure. If Julian Assange wasn't a public figure because of this, then it would be a lot easier for the US government to deal with him through various dirty tactics.
I think that real target is Wikileaks itself, so as long as its credibility is not destroyed, attack was a failure. Forcing Assange out does not really solve anything.
Agreed. But that doesn't make reasons why he shouldn't be forced out invalid. It's not an argument that its okay for someone to be driven out by rumour because their departure isn't a killing blow. Their departure still diminishes.
With good smear campaign it really does not matter if he admits anything or not.
I disagree there. To be accused of one of the pariah crimes (rape, child porn, etc.) is damaging in itself. It transforms the default state of many people you meet from openness, to an expectation you have to prove your innocence. To actually accede to the pressure from those accusations and accept your pariah status, lends strength to the accusations in the minds of other people. Accepting the punishment, makes people think you're guilty.
But let's not forget another possibility - that he is actually a rapist and there is no character assassination going on. Wikileaks publishes stuff quite frequently, so any timing for rape accusation would be suspicious.
Wikileaks has just jumped onto the radar in an unprecedented way for them. And they've embarrassed the US government in an unprecedented way. I think it's wrong to say that now is no different to any other time. Wikileaks has just gone very public and very mainstream. As regards "let's not forget another possibility - that he is actually a rapist": Well it's a logical possibility, but being cognizant that false accusation itself is a weapon, I choose to stick with innocent until proven guilty because it's a way of taking away the power of false accusation. And obviously it's good to do that. It does nothing to take away power from a true accusation because the police investigation will proceed or not entirely independent of my credence.
This sucks, but in ideal world WikiLeaks would not be even needed. This world is far from ideal and it needs Assange's work more than Assange himself. I am sure that if this becomes actual problem for WikiLeaks, he will step down without being forced to. This is mark of true idealist - being able to swallow injustice and put your cause before your interests.
And when someone is forced out by rumour and accusation, why do you think their successor will fare any better? All you've achieved is (a) shown that using such tactics is a great way to get rid of people who cause you problems and (b) fucked up someone's life when they're the person that admitted guilt by leaving their job because of rape accusations.
Say the US secret services wanted to get the WikiLeaks founder locked. Why not do something much simpler like planting child pornography on one of his computers?
I think you may over-estimate the capabilities of the US intelligence agencies here. For one, we can assume that someone like Julian Assange takes precautions when it comes to having their home computers hacked. When I say precautions, I mean they're going to have their computers locked down. Most hacking that happens is either mass scanning to find vulnerable systems or, if specifically targeted as this case would need to be, dependent on a target that doesn't keep a rigorously up to date and secure system. So a remote hack to put child porn (or other incriminating evidence on there) may not be possible. Particularly in a country where the telecomms wont casually hand over information to the US Intelligence Agencies.
So then you have to go for physical access. And whilst it's very hard to prevent people from breaking into your home if they're determined, it's a great deal easier to make it hard to do so undetected. Intelligence agencies will have access to locksmiths who can open up a door without force, and they'll have security people who can disable some burglar alarms using manufacturer codes, etc. But this works against the casual home-owner. If someone wants to take a couple of hours setting up more secure systems, 24/7 camera feeds or spending a bit of money on more serious alarms, locks, etc. then it's going to get really difficult. Particularly in anything other than a secluded countryside home where the owner is away all day. And we haven't even got started on the actual tampering with the computer yet. Stick a sick picture on someone's NTFS partition? Easy. Mount someone's encrypted home partition and add something in, make sure it's also added to their last few weeks backups (because you don't want it to provably have appeared whilst the owner was known to be away for the weekend. Oh, I could go on. Basically, if you know what you're doing and you take the time to prepare, and I assume both for this guy, then you can make things really fucking difficult for the intelligence agencies. Particularly if they're from a foreign country that your government wont fall over for.
Mud-slinging is actually, imo, the US governments easiest response and to be honest, expected. There are always those who will say "no smoke without fire".
These rape and harassment charges are trickier to fabricate. Remember, this is not the 19th century, there is plenty of forensic muscle in existence that can prove or disprove rape.
That I don't believe. Either way, in fact. You can check bruises in likely places that can suggest force, but some people like forceful sex and this can be consensual and bruises can be fabricated if your intent is to frame. As regards disprove rape, that's even worse. Far worse, in fact. If someone submits out of fear, it is still rape even if there are no bruises. And if you're thinking of the state of the vagina afterwards, that you can see evidence that they weren't very wet or relaxed during sex, again, this disproves nothing. It is actually quite possible for the body to be responsive to sexual stimulation during rape, even to the extent that a person reaches climax. Forced orgasm, or simply a lot of wetness, can be very confusing for a victim who questions whether it meant they were willing or not, what it says about them. It can make people feel very ashamed even though it's simply their body doing what seems natural to it. But it's still rape so long as one party was made to have sex through force or the threat of force, and forensic science can't "prove or disprove rape".
That's my point - I don't always have to pick the same one. I am magnanimous. All genders get their chance to be an impersonal pronoun. I don't think it confuses anyone and it removes some lingering gender-bias from the language.
On an unrelated note, if you absolutely must use Slashdot for inconsequential chitchat, would you do us the favor of starting your posts on the first line so the one-line preview actually works?
Sorry - noted on both issues. I didn't know about the one-line preview thing as I've never used it. In my defence, I'd like to plead it's a pretty inconsequential story.;)
I try to support things from first principles. There's no good reason why "he" should always be used over "she" and a reasonable case for supporting both so long as you are consistent within paragraphs / examples. Therefore a shift to using both "he" and "she" makes sense to me.
True. My consolation is that the idea itself isn't original. There's a certain inevitability to text adventures appearing on mobile devices. The selling point is going to have to be the quality of the adventure rather than that it exists. At least after the initial Slashvertisment wears off.
Slashdot Mirror
In addition, if they're paying extra for the upgrades needed to carry their real-time traffic, doesn't that benefit the rest of the customers who don't need real-time as much right now?
Possibly. I'm just a suspicious sort. This requires further information which no-one outside the company will have, to know whether it is good or bad in practice. It could easily be either.
What has Iran ever done to us
Read some history.
Well that answers what the US has done to Iran, but not so much the other way around. Okay...
Let's start with the storming of the US embassy and hostage taking, and go from there, shall we?
Your starting point is the seizing of the US embassy during a revolution when the US had just seized Iranian assets, was supporting the dictator of the country and when there are peristent rumours that the embassy in question was containing rather more than diplomatic staff. Now, as you say, let's go on from there and see what other crimes Iran has perpetuated on the US people. The floor is yours...
Heh, Iran and Iraq was at war for 8 years in the 1980s including chemical warfare. Saddam was no friend of Iran either, for as long as he was in power.
Saddam was no friend of the Iraqi people either. Remember that though the government was secular, there was still a general state of Sunni domination over the Shiite majority (+Kurds). You'd better believe that the Iraqi people today are more inclined to side with Iran than the US. The Sunnis not so much, but the Shiite, yes. I'm not saying the countries are going to merge or anything stupid like that, but Iran is a more natural ally to Iraq (culture, strategic aims, geographical proximity) than the US is (different culture, wrecked your country, helped set up the previous dictator, sold you out during the Kuwait war, threatens your popular leaders, forces your government to sign hugely partial oil-export deals, occupies the country militarily, forces its laws upon you, forbids local companies and workers from bidding on contracts to re-build their own country, the list goes on...). Nah, the big fear of the US during the post-war occupation was that Iraq would lean toward a close relationship with Iran.
And him alone I wouldn't worry much about either, what I do fear is if he manages to trigger some sort of christian-muslim war instead of just Iraq vs Israel or whatever.
The vast majority of muslims (remember there are about 2 billion world wide) just want to get on with their lives the same as everybody else. Whatever religious rhetoric gets thrown about, war or peace will happen based on real-world cost-benefit. Israel is the elephant in the china shop and if they get involved... it will result in a huge amount of death and misery for the whole region.
Don't disagree with the gist of your argument, but just want to say that the Russians aren't going to sell Iran nuclear warheads. That's too big and gives up Russia's powerful bargaining position in the area. What Russia has threatened to do and which Iran would love, is for Russia to sell them some modern anti-aircraft defence systems. Right now, Israel can credibly threaten to bomb Iran (and has threatened). If Russia follows through and sells them modern systems then Israels ability to threaten is somewhat reduced.
Well they arrested some US soldiers that were bouncing around in their coastal waters and then, er, gave them back a few days later after questioning.
Okay, seriously? They've not done anything much, it's that they exist. First off, they're too big to easily threaten and they also have means of responding - for example, they could seal the Strait of Hormuz which would majorly fuck up the US's oil supplies. Secondly, unless Russia helps out, you can't impose serious sanctions on them. End result: A country that doesn't have to do what you tell it to. And that's a big problem when you want to dominate the area. For example, Iran is primarily Shiite. So is a large proportion of the population of Iraq which is next door. Therefore it is natural for the nation of Iraq to form close ties with Iran. For another example, Israel has a policy of being the baddest bastards in their region and being able to threaten everyone else as their security policy. Again, Iran is large, powerful and getting better equipped every day. If Russia ever agrees to sell them modern air-defence weapons, then Israel's ability to bomb the fuck out of the country is severely diminished. If they ever get a nuclear weapon, then Israel will have to treat them as a military equal.
Basically, Iran is a "big kid". And that's a problem for the other "big kid" in the playground which is the US-Israelli bloc. The latter want to dominate the area, but so long as there's someone who isn't easy to push around, then the littler kids have someone they can maybe hide behind or try to become friends with. The US and Israel want themselves to be the only game in town. Iran, unless it can be kept down, means that there's another.
Did you read the context in the previous sentence? I was posing a question and giving an indirect answer
Sorry, but you wrote in a stand alone paragraph quite emphatically: "The decision not to rape comes from the desire not to hurt others or, as a fallback, the worry that you might get caught. That is all."
If you want to re-phrase it that "the only reason someone who wants to rape another person doesn't is because...", then fine. It's not what I got from your post and I think most people read it the same way.
This is a feminist fantasy which implies that two people suddenly want to have sex with each other with equal gusto precisely at the same time and for the same duration, and that sex is hardly about one fantasising and persuading the other.
I don't know why you're suddenly talking about "feminist fantasy". Men, women, chicks with dicks... everyone gets the same basic rights. You seem to be going off on some tangent about people wanting precisely the same sex at precisely the same time for precisely the same duration and the only "this" that I can work out that you're referring to as a "feminist fantasy" seems to be the quote you specifically took and responded to which was merely that sex should be willing on both parties. (Or 'all' parties. Lets keep our options open, here. ;) ). Your hyperbole about precise and identical ideas is an argument ad absurdem. You seem to be extrapolating "one persuading the other" as the end of a spectrum that has seduction at one end and rape at the other. NO! This is not a spectrum. The moment forced sex or the threat of forced sex comes into play, you're talking about something very different. It is not some "feminist fantasy" to expect mutuality in sex. That is the default for healthy people.
Sex occurs for a lot of reasons, and I have yet to read evidence that "because both people/animals simultaneously suddenly became equally physically and emotionally enthusiastic" is the major reason.
Now I start to think you have serious issues. Firstly, how about we don't suddenly broaden the discussion to be about the entire animal kingdom. Let's just stick to the reasoning beings known as homo sapiens that we were discussing. Your attempt to invoke other species for an implied 'man is an animal and this is how he thinks because other species do things in way X' gambit has no basis. We can talk solely about humans here and are doing so. If you can't make an argument based on the humans, don't try and muddy the waters to disguise that.
Secondly, stop using extremes to try and invalidate things. I talked about mutual consent. You start talking about "suddenly becoming equally physically and emotionally enthusiastic". You're not getting this crap from anything I said, so stop making strawmen. For reference, one person being in the mood and getting another person in the mood happens all the time. The only connection this has to rape is in your head where it appears you see them as variations on the same mindset. I.e. you see sex not as a mutual activity but a battle in which one party extracts intercourse from the other with rape and seduction being merely the forceful or the trickery method respectively. If that's how you think then seek help, because honest flirtation is neither. And that's not "feminist fantasy", that's how most people think.
I imagine a lot of men want a prostitute they go with to act like they're enjoying it.
I don't know. Why do you imagine this? It seems odd to project your claimed sexual ideals on others. Do you look at porn? Does it bother you that the woman almost certainly has no interest in you beyond the payment you'll offer to her / her employer?
Firstly, they're not my sexual "ideals", they're my sexual tastes. Your use of the former word implies you think they're something I aspire to, or perhaps think I ought to want.
Not very woot, no. Basically, the ISP is sending the message to customers that if you're doing something other than gaming, they're going to treat you like a second class citizen. And the priority you get is only relative to their other traffic so it doesn't mean that their 'first class' is any better than another company's 'standard'.
Sounds like a company I'll avoid.
Owing to the plaudits he's received from a large number of people who, like him, don't understand right and wrong, he's got a big head right now, and it's not keeping him from acting on his other character flaws, as this story indicates.
So based on your personal opinion that his actions are wrong and your statement that he's got a big ego despite not knowing him (I presume), you have decided that the accusations are true and he's a rapist, "as this story indicates". I see something wrong with that.
Does prostitution exist?
That doesn't refute my point. You said the only two reasons why one wouldn't commit rape are a desire not to hurt another and a fear of being caught. I offered a third which is that many of us would get no joy out of intercourse where our partner got no satisfaction. That the third doesn't apply to everyone no more makes it a non-existent reason than that your two reasons don't apply to everyone.
Secondly, I imagine a lot of men want a prostitute they go with to act like they're enjoying it. Even if that is partly or wholely faked, it's still something you're not going to get with rape.
Nor do I like either of those. I'm just stating the facts. I've been close friends with both people who were rape victims and one who was the victim of a false accusation (it was a case of consensual sex re-defined after the act when a boyfriend found out). The former were undoubtedly more harmed than the falsely accused person, but the latter didn't have an easy time of it either. He was a pretty clueless person in some ways, but a nice guy, and didn't even know what was going on for around two weeks, just that everyone was shunning him. Eventually a female friend clued him in on what people were saying about him. The end result was that it did him a lot of harm, not least of which just the shock of being accused of it, the big irony being he'd really liked her and thought she'd really liked him (which she appeared to until it became inconvenient. The two rape victims I was particularly close to were very damaged by the experience, one in particular.
Basically, I guess I'm saying two wrongs don't make a right and you can't allow a presumption either way. You say that without physical evidence rape can't be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. That's incorrect. Firstly, it can be shown sometimes by physical evidence in conjunction with other evidence. Force leaves a mark - bruises at the wrist, back the head, whatever. They don't prove anything themself, but in the right circumstances they support the case. Likewise, if someone accuses another of rape and there aren't such indications, well that doesn't mean there was no rape, but if they said that they resisted in their testimony and there's no such signs or the finger marks were lined up wrong and suggested they'd been self-inflicted for example, that would be significant. It's just not what the GP described in saying that forensic science could prove whether rape took place or not. A random assault on the street by a stranger is a lot easier to prove beyond a reasonable doubt a lot of the time than someone who is a regular partner, or if you chose to go home with someone and then changed your mind part way.
As I said, I don't like either of your options myself, I'm just stating the fact that it can be impossible to prove such things sometimes.
The decision not to rape comes from the desire not to hurt others or, as a fallback, the worry that you might get caught. That is all.
It is not all. It also comes from the desire for sex being one of mutual involvement. Even if your partner wasn't forced to have sex, but was doing it for some other reason such as to repay a favour, pity or apathy... would you really want to have sex with someone who wasn't interested / enjoying it? I wouldn't.
I was raped once.
Of course I didn't find out until his credit card was declined.
An egomaniac lets his current feeling of success affect his judgment when sex becomes his immediate focus?
I never realised before that success made you want to rape people.
But Assange isn't about the legal way of doing things. He's about the sensational way of doing things.
When you want to publicise information, the sensational way of doing things is the effective way of doing things. The deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan are happening now. You want someone to go to a foreign government (the US) and spend a few years and a lot of money appealing to a foreign legal system asking it to incriminate itself?
The Swedish courts can't do things like that. They can decide on prison sentences, community service, fines, and a few other things, but they can't forbid someone from using Internet, or make up new types of punishment on the fly.
Somebody mod that country +2 Insightful.
But something like this is beneath even the CIA.
The CIA assassinate people. As in, you know, deprive them of their life. How is accusing someone of rape beneath them?
It probably helps to understand that to most citizens of the USA, Sweden and Switzerland are the same place.
I don't. But it was obvious from the start that Wikileaks is against enemy willing to fight dirty. How to defend? Maybe by not appointing Assange's successor - instead going for completely decentralized structure without any visible point man to attack
Decentralisation of control is usually a good thing. No argument there. But inevitably some people are going to need to stick their head above the parapet and become a spokesperson. For now that seems to be Julian Assange. Also keep in mind that doing so is sometimes a safety measure. If Julian Assange wasn't a public figure because of this, then it would be a lot easier for the US government to deal with him through various dirty tactics.
I think that real target is Wikileaks itself, so as long as its credibility is not destroyed, attack was a failure. Forcing Assange out does not really solve anything.
Agreed. But that doesn't make reasons why he shouldn't be forced out invalid. It's not an argument that its okay for someone to be driven out by rumour because their departure isn't a killing blow. Their departure still diminishes.
With good smear campaign it really does not matter if he admits anything or not.
I disagree there. To be accused of one of the pariah crimes (rape, child porn, etc.) is damaging in itself. It transforms the default state of many people you meet from openness, to an expectation you have to prove your innocence. To actually accede to the pressure from those accusations and accept your pariah status, lends strength to the accusations in the minds of other people. Accepting the punishment, makes people think you're guilty.
But let's not forget another possibility - that he is actually a rapist and there is no character assassination going on. Wikileaks publishes stuff quite frequently, so any timing for rape accusation would be suspicious.
Wikileaks has just jumped onto the radar in an unprecedented way for them. And they've embarrassed the US government in an unprecedented way. I think it's wrong to say that now is no different to any other time. Wikileaks has just gone very public and very mainstream. As regards "let's not forget another possibility - that he is actually a rapist": Well it's a logical possibility, but being cognizant that false accusation itself is a weapon, I choose to stick with innocent until proven guilty because it's a way of taking away the power of false accusation. And obviously it's good to do that. It does nothing to take away power from a true accusation because the police investigation will proceed or not entirely independent of my credence.
This sucks, but in ideal world WikiLeaks would not be even needed. This world is far from ideal and it needs Assange's work more than Assange himself. I am sure that if this becomes actual problem for WikiLeaks, he will step down without being forced to. This is mark of true idealist - being able to swallow injustice and put your cause before your interests.
And when someone is forced out by rumour and accusation, why do you think their successor will fare any better? All you've achieved is (a) shown that using such tactics is a great way to get rid of people who cause you problems and (b) fucked up someone's life when they're the person that admitted guilt by leaving their job because of rape accusations.
Say the US secret services wanted to get the WikiLeaks founder locked. Why not do something much simpler like planting child pornography on one of his computers?
I think you may over-estimate the capabilities of the US intelligence agencies here. For one, we can assume that someone like Julian Assange takes precautions when it comes to having their home computers hacked. When I say precautions, I mean they're going to have their computers locked down. Most hacking that happens is either mass scanning to find vulnerable systems or, if specifically targeted as this case would need to be, dependent on a target that doesn't keep a rigorously up to date and secure system. So a remote hack to put child porn (or other incriminating evidence on there) may not be possible. Particularly in a country where the telecomms wont casually hand over information to the US Intelligence Agencies.
So then you have to go for physical access. And whilst it's very hard to prevent people from breaking into your home if they're determined, it's a great deal easier to make it hard to do so undetected. Intelligence agencies will have access to locksmiths who can open up a door without force, and they'll have security people who can disable some burglar alarms using manufacturer codes, etc. But this works against the casual home-owner. If someone wants to take a couple of hours setting up more secure systems, 24/7 camera feeds or spending a bit of money on more serious alarms, locks, etc. then it's going to get really difficult. Particularly in anything other than a secluded countryside home where the owner is away all day. And we haven't even got started on the actual tampering with the computer yet. Stick a sick picture on someone's NTFS partition? Easy. Mount someone's encrypted home partition and add something in, make sure it's also added to their last few weeks backups (because you don't want it to provably have appeared whilst the owner was known to be away for the weekend. Oh, I could go on. Basically, if you know what you're doing and you take the time to prepare, and I assume both for this guy, then you can make things really fucking difficult for the intelligence agencies. Particularly if they're from a foreign country that your government wont fall over for.
Mud-slinging is actually, imo, the US governments easiest response and to be honest, expected. There are always those who will say "no smoke without fire".
These rape and harassment charges are trickier to fabricate. Remember, this is not the 19th century, there is plenty of forensic muscle in existence that can prove or disprove rape.
That I don't believe. Either way, in fact. You can check bruises in likely places that can suggest force, but some people like forceful sex and this can be consensual and bruises can be fabricated if your intent is to frame. As regards disprove rape, that's even worse. Far worse, in fact. If someone submits out of fear, it is still rape even if there are no bruises. And if you're thinking of the state of the vagina afterwards, that you can see evidence that they weren't very wet or relaxed during sex, again, this disproves nothing. It is actually quite possible for the body to be responsive to sexual stimulation during rape, even to the extent that a person reaches climax. Forced orgasm, or simply a lot of wetness, can be very confusing for a victim who questions whether it meant they were willing or not, what it says about them. It can make people feel very ashamed even though it's simply their body doing what seems natural to it. But it's still rape so long as one party was made to have sex through force or the threat of force, and forensic science can't "prove or disprove rape".
I should be clear: My experience is with scalar field inflation with a quadratic potential
The world needs a lot more people who say things like this. :D
That's my point - I don't always have to pick the same one. I am magnanimous. All genders get their chance to be an impersonal pronoun. I don't think it confuses anyone and it removes some lingering gender-bias from the language.
Sorry - noted on both issues. I didn't know about the one-line preview thing as I've never used it. In my defence, I'd like to plead it's a pretty inconsequential story. ;)
I try to support things from first principles. There's no good reason why "he" should always be used over "she" and a reasonable case for supporting both so long as you are consistent within paragraphs / examples. Therefore a shift to using both "he" and "she" makes sense to me.
True. My consolation is that the idea itself isn't original. There's a certain inevitability to text adventures appearing on mobile devices. The selling point is going to have to be the quality of the adventure rather than that it exists. At least after the initial Slashvertisment wears off.
Thanks,
H.