Breakdown In Civil Order

[bilby]

Out of all that, you think my use of "extremely unique" is the problem?

Sure. The rest makes perfect sense.

The whole idea that prisoners need to leverage rules about gender identity in order to commit rapes in prison is beyond absurd.

 

[Jarhyn]

you have to admit, it's an extremely unique case.

"Unique" literally means "the only one of its kind". It is by definition superlative, and therefore cannot take modifiers such as "extremely" (or "fairly", "very", "somewhat", etc., etc.).

Nobody ever has to admit that anything is "extremely the only one of its kind".

I am left wondering what you thought the word "unique" meant. Did you think it was a mere synonym of "unusual"? If so, why not just say "extremely unusual"?

Every phenomena in the universe is the only exact instance of that phenomena.

In order to declare sameness anywhere, you have to ignore some proportion of uniqueness.

As such, I would argue that all uniqueness is "relative" to the differences you decide to ignore, and so things CAN and in fact MUST be "qualified" in how unique they are.

 

[bilby]

When I said "extremely unique," I meant to emphasize the degree of peculiarity.

Sure. but "unique" isn't a synonym of "peculiar". Something can be "extremely peculiar"; If its peculiarity is sufficiently extreme, it could even be unique. But that's the most peculiar it can get; Unique is the top of the hierarchy. It's the point at which something is so radically different as to be the ONLY ONE of it's class.

The word "unique" already emphasizes, as far as it is ever possible to emphasize, the degree to which something stands out from the pack; A unique item stands alone.

This is a much more interesting discussion than the one in which we are being asked to consider unique, something as commonplace as prison rape, just because the rapist happened to use a fairly new regulation to gain access to a victim. Literally every rule about prisoner segregation has been abused to that end, since the idea of prison as a punishment.

 

[Gospel]

When I said "extremely unique," I meant to emphasize the degree of peculiarity.

Sure. but "unique" isn't a synonym of "peculiar". Something can be "extremely peculiar"; If its peculiarity is sufficiently extreme, it could even be unique. But that's the most peculiar it can get; Unique is the top of the hierarchy. It's the point at which something is so radically different as to be the ONLY ONE of it's class.

The word "unique" already emphasizes, as far as it is ever possible to emphasize, the degree to which something stands out from the pack; A unique item stands alone.

This is a much more interesting discussion than the one in which we are being asked to consider unique, something as commonplace as prison rape, just because the rapist happened to use a fairly new regulation to gain access to a victim. Literally every rule about prisoner segregation has been abused to that end, since the idea of prison as a punishment.

Ok. It’s both unique and extremely peculiar. Got it.

 

[bilby]

As arguments go, "We cannot allow transgender people the freedom to use public toilet facilites, because someone got raped in prison", really ought to be one of the most crazy and illogical things ever.

That it doesn't even rate, in comparison to the other rantings of shark battery man and his followers, is a measure of just how far public discourse has fallen.

 

[bilby]

Every phenomena in the universe is the only exact instance of that phenomena.

"Phenomena" is plural. The singular is "Phenomenon".




You're welcome.

 

[TomC]

As arguments go, "We cannot allow transgender people the freedom to use public toilet facilites, because someone got raped in prison", really ought to be one of the most crazy and illogical things ever.

It's a big Internet, you can probably find someone who says that. I don't remember it, nor would I take them at all seriously if I did.

There's other, much more appropo, reasons for sex segregation of public restrooms. They might be easy for you to dismiss because they don't impact you. But that doesn't mean that they don't exist.
Tom

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Fortune 500 Corporations Used Stock Option Loophole to Avoid $64.6 Billion in Taxes Over the Past Five Years

Yes, there's a big problem with options. Tax dodges and they encourage risky behavior. I have not seen any good reason they should exist at all.

But that's a different issue than taxing unrealized gains.

No, it's not.

You don't get to simply assert that. One is a problem with improper valuation, one is not.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

One thing's for certain, cisgender men pretending to be transgender women to sneak into female-only spaces and cause trouble is a myth. Nah, scratch that— It hasn't even been around long enough to be considered a traditional story. It's just plain ol' bullshit.

I think you underestimate the depraved depths that some men will go to get a look at some female skin. I recall a few years ago that a man put on a wet suit and hid in the "vault" (yes, that's what they call it!) of a campground port-a-potty to watch the women sitting down on the can. If someone will go through that much trouble, I don't find it hard to believe that some pervo will pretend to be a transwoman to check some women out in a bathroom or gym locker room.

Yeah, there have been such cases. But note that it's a vault--there's a space they can observe from. Sneaking into a western women's room provides no such viewing opportunity. A hidden camera likely doesn't show very much because of bad angles. (Put it where it can actually see and we saw what happened with that flight attendant--a camera with a good view is likely to be seen.) And since they're hiding a camera they need to work unobserved anyway--they'll do it with nobody around. Illusion of security.

(Now, squat toilets are another matter. Seems to be something of a genre in Japanese stuff.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

One thing's for certain, cisgender men pretending to be transgender women to sneak into female-only spaces and cause trouble is a myth. Nah, scratch that— It hasn't even been around long enough to be considered a traditional story. It's just plain ol' bullshit.

I think you underestimate the depraved depths that some men will go to get a look at some female skin. I recall a few years ago that a man put on a wet suit and hid in the "vault" (yes, that's what they call it!) of a campground port-a-potty to watch the women sitting down on the can. If someone will go through that much trouble, I don't find it hard to believe that some pervo will pretend to be a transwoman to check some women out in a bathroom or gym locker room.

If the objective is to completely eliminate the tiny number of people who are that desparate, then the only way to achieve that objective is not to have public bathroom facilities at all.

Attacking transwomen is not only unnecessary, it is also insufficient.

A simple fix that would probably be a big help with the issue: Change the law so toilet video isn't considered obscene. We keep seeing it again and again--consenting adult porn takes a big bite out of sex crime.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I suspect most of the landlords have no rens mea, though.

A rens mea?

Latin, a guilty mind. I suspect most did not realize it was price fixing. They just saw a company offering guidance on setting rent for maximum profit and didn't realize it worked by getting everyone to charge too much.

Most crimes require an intent to commit a wrongful act. Someone who has no idea they consumed alcohol will get off on a DUI. (usually alcohol-naive teens who didn't know the punch was spiked, but it could also apply to someone roofied or the like.) Likewise, the UPS guy isn't guilty of possession for delivering a box of drugs.

I'll note this is the correct way to handle it.

That said, someone only gets to use that excuse ONCE. If they repeat the offending act after that, mens rea is the default assumption.

Someone can't be roofied twice?

I could even picture it happening more than once with alcohol. They're not going to make the mistake with the punch again, but slipping alcohol into other stuff could still happen. Rapists sometimes deliberately get a woman drunk with stronger alcohol than she realizes. She could look at what she believed she consumed and how much time it's been and think she's ok.

Somebody who consumes alcohol to the point of intoxication will probably know what it feels like, but someone who doesn't could be fooled.

It's really hard to produce even a first act absent mens rea for spiking drinks.

Communication error.

I was talking about actions while unknowingly intoxicated, not about spiking drinks.

The punch bowl could easily be communications--someone naive to the situation didn't realize what everyone else knew. I have once unknowingly consumed edibles--I had no idea what was in them, nobody else realized I wasn't aware of what was done. Cooking over a wood fire so oddness was to be expected.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

That's kind of irrelevent to my point, though. My point was that men (males who identify as men...aka cisgender men) will go to great lengths to act pervy. If you're so determined to be pervy, dressing up as a woman is probably one of the easier ways to do it (unless you're built like The Rock). Its also quite a stretch to call it a myth or "plain ol' bullshit. There have been a number of cases of men entering female spaces (including female prisons) who clearly were pretending to be transgender so they could have access to females. There have been other cases where the motive is less cut and dry.

Huh? I haven't heard of any. Note that female attire as a disguise is not the same as being transgender.

 

[Jarhyn]

I suspect most of the landlords have no rens mea, though.

A rens mea?

Latin, a guilty mind. I suspect most did not realize it was price fixing. They just saw a company offering guidance on setting rent for maximum profit and didn't realize it worked by getting everyone to charge too much.

Most crimes require an intent to commit a wrongful act. Someone who has no idea they consumed alcohol will get off on a DUI. (usually alcohol-naive teens who didn't know the punch was spiked, but it could also apply to someone roofied or the like.) Likewise, the UPS guy isn't guilty of possession for delivering a box of drugs.

I'll note this is the correct way to handle it.

That said, someone only gets to use that excuse ONCE. If they repeat the offending act after that, mens rea is the default assumption.

Someone can't be roofied twice?

I could even picture it happening more than once with alcohol. They're not going to make the mistake with the punch again, but slipping alcohol into other stuff could still happen. Rapists sometimes deliberately get a woman drunk with stronger alcohol than she realizes. She could look at what she believed she consumed and how much time it's been and think she's ok.

Somebody who consumes alcohol to the point of intoxication will probably know what it feels like, but someone who doesn't could be fooled.

It's really hard to produce even a first act absent mens rea for spiking drinks.

Communication error.

I was talking about actions while unknowingly intoxicated, not about spiking drinks.

The punch bowl could easily be communications--someone naive to the situation didn't realize what everyone else knew. I have once unknowingly consumed edibles--I had no idea what was in them, nobody else realized I wasn't aware of what was done. Cooking over a wood fire so oddness was to be expected.

Fair enough. My point was more about things where people act as if they didn't know.

It's like a lot of arguments: the first time the argument comes up and gets refuted... Sure, whatever. But the thirtieth time?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I do find it fairly hilarious that someone would rather put on a rubber suit and respirator and wade in a literal vault of shit rather than doing the much easier thing of just joining a scat fetish group and buying a glass table... Or just googling glass table porn.

Probably because they didn't know, plus probably not being very social.

I had no idea there were such groups, nor was I aware of the label "glass table porn". I've only been aware of it as a genre with Japanese stuff. Squat toilets are far more peepable than western toilets.

I find it disturbing and quite funny that men are, in fact, more likely to do that (sit in a vat of shit) than to do as Derec suggests and dress up as women, but the reality is that cross dressing doesn't afford such access and requires actually being expected to understand and listen to women talking about their feelings... It's got all of the emotional costs and none of the sexual benefits that are presumed by people.

If you're going to be hiding a camera you don't want to be observed--no emotional cost because you don't interact. But also no benefit from pretending to be trans, drag would do it. Or dress up as a plumber and carry appropriate tools. Dressing like a worker who belongs in a location gets people into an awful lot of places.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

That's kind of irrelevent to my point, though. My point was that men (males who identify as men...aka cisgender men) will go to great lengths to act pervy.

It's not irrelevant. I'm essentially asking you, given your strong feelings and compelling evidence, to present a case where something like this has occurred. Then, demonstrate how it's a widespread issue that warrants significant concern and the allocation of resources to address it.

Edit: And in case you've forgotten, I'm referring to cisgender males pretending to be transgender women to gain access to women's spaces.

OK, here ya go. An article from 10 days ago in my state:

3rd-strike 'trans' rape suspect prompts rebellion against CA law after attack in women's prison

Faux Noise. I don't trust the accuracy.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

This event happened, as I recall, around the time the internet was just taking off, if not before. So, no googling for online scat fetish groups or "glass table porn" (whatever that is) back then. I'm not even sure he had a scat fetish. Seems like a wetsuit to protect himself is evidence of that, no? I'll see if I can find a news account of it.

I've heard of a few cases, can't recall a timeframe beyond not being recent but I rather suspect you are right that it was before they could go online for it.

And who claimed that sitting in a vat of shit was more common than dressing up as a woman? I imagine its far, far less common. I was merely using it as an extreme example of how desperate some men can become to check out women.

I suspect it's about watching them go, not merely checking them out.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

you have to admit, it's an extremely unique case.

"Unique" literally means "the only one of its kind". It is by definition superlative, and therefore cannot take modifiers such as "extremely" (or "fairly", "very", "somewhat", etc., etc.).

Nobody ever has to admit that anything is "extremely the only one of its kind".

I am left wondering what you thought the word "unique" meant. Did you think it was a mere synonym of "unusual"? If so, why not just say "extremely unusual"?

I must quibble a bit on this. Earlier today I ran into a video about the rarest move in chess, but "rarest" in terms of what gets written down in the record. He had a move that he found only one instance of in the Lichess database but was making a case for there being rarer moves that statistically would be expected at a rate below 1 for all the games in the database. (And pretty much had to involve someone playing with their opponent. There are very occasional reasons to underpromote, but he had ones that required two underpromotions in one game.)

 

[ZiprHead]

Fortune 500 Corporations Used Stock Option Loophole to Avoid $64.6 Billion in Taxes Over the Past Five Years

Yes, there's a big problem with options. Tax dodges and they encourage risky behavior. I have not seen any good reason they should exist at all.

But that's a different issue than taxing unrealized gains.

No, it's not.

You don't get to simply assert that. One is a problem with improper valuation, one is not.

Determining value is easy. What was the value of the stock at the close of business on the day it was issued? That's the value when it was issued.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Fortune 500 Corporations Used Stock Option Loophole to Avoid $64.6 Billion in Taxes Over the Past Five Years

Yes, there's a big problem with options. Tax dodges and they encourage risky behavior. I have not seen any good reason they should exist at all.

But that's a different issue than taxing unrealized gains.

No, it's not.

You don't get to simply assert that. One is a problem with improper valuation, one is not.

Determining value is easy. What was the value of the stock at the close of business on the day it was issued? That's the value when it was issued.

The problem is why should an asset like stock (which is generally easy to value) be treated differently than an asset that's harder to value (say, a house)?

 

[ZiprHead]

Fortune 500 Corporations Used Stock Option Loophole to Avoid $64.6 Billion in Taxes Over the Past Five Years

Yes, there's a big problem with options. Tax dodges and they encourage risky behavior. I have not seen any good reason they should exist at all.

But that's a different issue than taxing unrealized gains.

No, it's not.

You don't get to simply assert that. One is a problem with improper valuation, one is not.

Determining value is easy. What was the value of the stock at the close of business on the day it was issued? That's the value when it was issued.

The problem is why should an asset like stock (which is generally easy to value) be treated differently than an asset that's harder to value (say, a house)?

Valuation is the same, what people are willing to pay for it.