This is terrible, but blaming WhatsApp seems like a weird leap of logic. If someone harassed you over the phone, you wouldn't blame the telecom company. If someone sent you a death threat in the mail, you wouldn't sue the postal service. If someone hit you with their car, you wouldn't retaliate against the automaker.
It seems like the BBC is just bringing up the name of the popular chat app as a way of generating more clicks. If their goal is raise awareness for the woman who died and people like her, that's noble but a bit misguided. If their goal is simply to generate more viewership and revenue for their website (which it seems like it is), it's deplorable.
The article doesn't blame WhatsApp, any more than a story abut a murder in Tulsa called "The Tulsa Murder" would be blaming Tulsa. WhatsApp is not the victim here.
the brief was to discourage use of whatsapp. they were given the title. they just didn't write exactly what the ghcq boss that gave them the story to write wanted.
Are you kidding me?
WhatsApp want to be in the hands of the uneducated and illiterate and Zuckerberg takes every chance he gets to say this is going to make the world a better place.
If that's the claim they make, they better feel responsible when there are unintended consequences like rural men using the platform as a distribution system for illegal porn.
If every time there are unintended consequences in software and bugs don't get filled, guess what the system does not fix itself. This has to be treated the same way.
>If every time there are unintended consequences in software and bugs don't get filled, guess what the system does not fix itself. This has to be treated the same way.
I don't think this analogy really holds. It's not a "bug", the system works as intended.
The big difference between a system like Facebook or WhatsApp and a telco is not that it's the responsibility of the platform -- WhatsApp is not encouraging abuse -- but the fact that abuse can be monitored for.
This raises the interesting question of moral culpability. If the crime can be prevented with certain tools (in this case monitoring tools), is it the responsibility of the platform to do so? It seems that we are shifting more and more to the "yes" end of that spectrum.
>is it the responsibility of the platform to do so?
This is a question the platform needs to answer for itself, and is fundamentally just a 'safety vs. freedom' decision. Some platforms will select for freedom and others will select for safety.
Decentralized systems will, by their nature, err on the side on freedom. By the time decentralized networks are viable/usable, I think the general populace will be more interested in such things. The curated, safe experiences will be the dominion of corporations.
If the crime can be prevented with certain tools (in this case monitoring tools), is it the responsibility of the platform to do so? It seems that we are shifting more and more to the "yes" end of that spectrum.
This seems related to a question I've had in wake of mass shootings, when others claim that concealed carry (or more guns in general) would have changed the outcome: should those carrying guns in the vicinity be blamed for not entering the fray?
Actually thinking about it, whatsapp can play a role. They say they want to find ways to stop the spread of such videos - we all know that's nearly impossible on the internet as a whole, but in a world where for most people the internet might be primarily whatsapp or similar there is an obvious way: check files against a database of hashes for 'prohibited' files. Same way Dropbox checks for copyright violations, YouTube for copyrighted video and sound or Microsoft's child porn checker.
So you could say if the company would want to address this issue, which is largely occurring on and through its technology, it could do so. You wouldn't be able to stop initial spreas, but if people get the chance to report the spread might be stopped quite early exactly because it's such a conservative society.
Not saying that's the ultimate solution(or even a desirable one) and there are plenty of caveats - but if companies wanted to address the issue they could at least try, so whatsapp/fb is certainly not 100℅ off the hook. That they haven't made any attempt to provide mechanisms to stop this kind of thing was their choice.
Or is there something that just wasn't active here? Eg does whatsapp block child porn distribution or copyrighted materials? Fb is pretty strict on that kind of stuff so I'd be surprised if there's really no mechanism yet.
Whatsapp is end-to-end encrypted, remember, including the contents of videos. In order to block videos they'd basically have to undo that and give themselves the ability to monitor everything that everyone is sending, including private consensual sexual content.
Has an Indian male, reading about this stuff is both extremely horrifying and sadly familiar. What are the organizations and charities who are doing the best work to change this situation? I'd like to actively help.
So this is what happens, if exponential progress collides head-on with a medieval culture thad had no time to prepare. Absolutely scary - and to me it rather looks like it's helping fighting equality and human decency rather than fostering it.
> So this is what happens, if exponential progress collides head-on with a medieval culture thad had no time to prepare
It's inaccurate to characterize this as a problem with "medieval culture" meeting new technology.
This is a problem of a misogynist ultra-patriarchal culture (subculture?) in which new technology enables abusers to spread evidence of their misdeeds as a kind of perverse propaganda. This is NOT to say India as a whole, or even in the main, is misogynist and ultra-patriarchal.
Another reason I'm calling this out as inaccurate is that it distances many first-worlders (for example, myself in the USA) from such behavior, but we know all too well that such behaviors are replicated at all levels of society from the lowest and most impoverished ghettos to the most advantaged, wealthy, and presumably cultured dynastic families.
Technology in the form of social media enables others to see it and, in this particular instance, the distribution of the video documenting the crime has the effect (intended or not) of further repressing women who would dare to better themselves and their society (e.g. as health workers).
What really saddens me (as well as reinforces the idea that the dissemination of the video reinforces misogyny) is the husband's reaction:
> But in her home village, anger over Geeta's death is still
> muted by questions about her honour. Even Geeta's own
> husband, who eventually found out about the video from his
> neighbours, shares the prevailing suspicion that she might
> have done something to encourage the attack. "If she had
> told me," he says, "we'd have asked her if it was done with
> her consent. Then we'd have gathered the village elders to
> decide what action should be taken." He shows no sign of
> outrage about the rape, and has made no demands for police
> action.
Some societies are worse than others, but if even in the self-proclaimed modern civilization of the western world professionals in the adult entertainment or sex/erotic services industry are treated like 2nd class citizens, there's a need for a more substantial shift in perception and treatment of something that's as natural as eating and sleeping. It's unnatural that many societies have created ways to suppress human nature in many ways they deem morally incorrect, and it's very wrong that laws reflect the moral world views of some.
I won't go into how there used to be societies which in some regards were more open and safer than today's, or how the treatment by a part of some religious communities goes against those religions' core beliefs.
Empowering people to defend themselves and deal with abuse in a dignified way is very important, and we first need to stop blaming victims as "promiscuous" or "having asked for it". This isn't very different from how we treat people who went to prison.
EDIT: We also need to find a good way to investigate accusations without automatically assuming that, for instance, alleged male perpetrators are by default considered (not found, to be clear) guilty, or that wives do not abuse their husbands. The described societal defects are partly to blame, as are underequipped/unskilled law enforcement or judicial departments. If someone can lose their job and family because anybody merely publicly accuses them of a sex crime or adultery, then it's clear we have a problem on the other end of the spectrum. To me, both are caused by related societal flaws and will take a long time to correct. Another way this surfaces is that people tend to worry more about a government official's personal life than their positive/negative acts in office.
KirinDave points out in a sibling comment that what I wrote here can be read to blame rape victims. Under no circumstance is that the message I was trying communicate, but I take full responsibility for failing to write an unambiguous comment. I did not mean to blame the victim, and don't think I did, but I'm willing to learn from my failed wording to not repeat in the future. What I tried to express is that due to the way sexuality is handled in most societies, we mistreat rape victims as a result. I'm sorry I failed to convey that message clearly.
I'd be grateful if you can quote what parts can be read in a way that I didn't intend them to be, and I'll either choose less ambiguous expressions or omit the thought entirely, seeing how hard it is to communicate precisely.
I don't see you as blaming rape victims. What I see instead is:
* A repetition of the trope that sexual culture is to blame for the impact of rape. Rape isn't sex, and prudishness what forced this woman to kill herself. Misogyny was. The issue in the culture we're describing --- and in its echoes in our own culture --- is the power dynamic between men and women, in which women are seen as having an obligation to somehow temper the sexual impulses of men they come into contact with, or else avoid men altogether.
* A diversion from what is a Handmaid's Tale-grade story about the victimization of women to the entirely unrelated topic of whether men suffer unduly from accusations of rape. That's particularly galling given the specifics of this story.
Whether you intended to or not, your comment --- which as Michele notes is at the top of the thread --- had the clear effect of minimizing the tragedy and injustice depicted in this story. I think we should be ashamed of this whole HN thread, which is dominated more by whether the BBC's reporting was unfair to a 400 billion dollar social networking company than by any kind of reflection about what happened to the subject of the story.
I don't know you at all, and I make no claims about what your intent actually was. I'm happy to assume that this was all unintentional. I'm writing about your comment, not about you.
Thanks, now that you point it out, I can see how that part can overshadow the whole comment and be read in a way I didn't intend to. I'll aim to do better in future comments.
I admit that I'm less prepared to comment in a minefield topic like this than I had thought, as my comment has been easily, and rightfully so, misinterpreted. I'm sorry about that and grateful you do not assume too much. Knowing the etymology of 'victim', it would never cross my mind to do so.
I agree with your explanation how rape and subsequent shaming and general mistreatment is being facilitated, and I think the root cause is our conflicted and unhealthy approach to sexuality. I don't think it would reach the same effect if sexuality was a mundane topic, so that abuse can be treated as a crime rather than, as you say, presented as disobedience by those in positions of power and widespread misogyny in general. If it wasn't a taboo topic, victims would probably be more inclined to come forward and falsely accused but acquitted wouldn't be shunned as easily. That's the gist of my theory, if I look at it like a programmer, a logician. How true that is in the real world I don't know, and I'm sorry for not phrasing it as an open question to begin with.
Basically I tried and failed to paint a complete picture how society prefers to mark abuse victims as well as falsely accused perpetrators as personae non grata rather than find solutions to the problem. Tragically, society fails so much that it causes and is responsible for suicides. I blame society only, and theorize that our inexcusably wrong approach to sexuality facilitates it.
Neither was I trying to say that her death is an inevitable outcome or that men are somehow led to commit those heinous crimes. Thinking men have no choice and have to be protected is why some wives have to wear veils. It's wrong, at least 2300 years late in human society, and nothing I stand behind. Seeing how my comment has been interpreted that way convinced me that I'm unprepared to debate this topic in an international plaintext forum among people who don't know each other personally. Sorry.
Any insensitivity I may have expressed in the comment is because I'm a technically minded person first, thinking in terms of logic, and looking for the root cause of a segfault (societal flaw). I guess I'll stay with technical topics where there's a closed world with rules I can look up.
This thread, and your comment in particular, provided me with a more complete picture than I had this morning. Thanks for pointing out the flaws and incomplete parts of my thoughts. I believe in constructive criticism and open debate, so asking someone "did you really mean .... or what is it you're trying to say?" is my preferred approach rather than making assumptions, so thanks. Also, yes, if we knew each other personally, you'd have been more likely to correct me, knowing what kind of person I am. Thank you for not reducing me to a utf-8 blob on HN.
I haven't read the thread that lead to this comment (though I'm about to), but I would encourage you to continue, at your own pace, to engage in thinking about topics like this. It sounds like you're a thoughtful person, and the world needs more thoughtful people thinking about tough problems.
I've just realized that both Dave and Thomas have been focusing on the topic of abuse prevention, while my comments concern fixing the inexcusably wrong treatment of victims. That must be source of the major misunderstanding here. Huh.
Up is down. Black is white. Pants are shirts. A story about a woman who was shamed into suicide by a culture --- one of the world's largest --- that blames women for their own violent rapes is evidence that society needs to correct its bias against men.
And it may not have helped that the place in question has tribalism in place which classifies persons by their heritage in ways that are unimaginable to most of the HN crowd.
My point was that the structure of said society may lend itself more to facilitate the events leading to the inexcusable, tragic result. That said, there have also been harassment/bullying (not comparing, equalizing the events, to be clear) victims in the US that committed suicide, so I think I get what you're asking.
Let me try to rephrase: I'm not saying this was the case in this incident, but the fairly unique classification rules of the society in question may increase the chances of such an outcome and be another reason to rethink the rules.
You're doing exactly what drove this poor woman to suicide here: saying her rape and subsequent shaming was all but inevitable and until the monsters that did this to here are perpetually appeased, what happened to her is at least partially her fault (either directly or indirectly).
Your sentiment is vile and dehumanizing. It's carefully veiled and couched so as to make it appear to be a cousin of a feninist appeal for sex workers rights, with the safety of these victims in mind. But even casual inspection of your intent reveals that you believe that unless sated by a sex industry, rape is inevitable and we shouldn't blame the monsters who commit it.
I am sure you will protest this and cite the weight of history. Men's rights advocates usually do. And I'll happily point out that progressivism and the slow progress of women's rights against all odds and a nearly endless series of arguments like yours is also a pressure of history. One that many of us are working to further.
It's unfortunate that's how you read my comment, and I take full responsibility for failing to write an unambiguous comment. I did not mean to blame the victim, and don't think I did, but I'm willing to improve the wording to not repeat what you say blames the victim. Please quote what parts can be read in a way that I didn't intend them to be. In fact, what I tried to express is that due to the way sexuality is handled in most societies, we mistreat rape victims as a result. I'm sorry I failed to be clear about that.
You do not need to apologize. This is a hard point to make and trying to make it is highly likely to be wildly misinterpreted, no matter your phrasing.
Don't take it personally. It might help to disengage for a bit and let people say whatever dumb stuff they are going to say. You are not required to reply to every single comment. Sometimes it is more effective to be a bit selective about what you reply to.
Best.
Edit: You have the top comment. So some people are silently agreeing with you by upvoting you.
I'm fascinated by how youve taken the majority opinion-that this woman's death was inevitable-and spun it as a courageous opinion on the face of overwhelming venom. Your opinion is not silent cheering, but rather a deafening thunder that reminds women every day of the place society as put them in.
The ingenuity with which people continue to reframe every story about rape around "what drove men to do it" and to reinforce the message that such actions are a pressure from a society that is in fact biased against men's sexual needs is amazing.
I am fascinated by your ability to put words in my mouth and make stuff up about my views whole cloth.
Edit: Your comments are delicious irony given how often I get accused of being a feminist on this forum and accused of writing feminist blogposts merely for being openly female and giving my personal opinions here.
Probably this part of the thread isn't going to go anywhere productive. You both have things to say that I am interested in hearing --- although in this case, Michele, I think you're wrong. But at this point tone has decisively sabotaged the conversation. Doesn't matter whose fault it is; it's just a fact now.
And yet you choose to crab at the woman and not at the member who is putting words in my mouth and tarring me. Because your whiteknighting tendencies do so much good for the status of women on HN.
If you fail to see that you never, ever engaging the top ranked woman here except to shoot her down completely contradicts your stated concern for the status of women, well, I don't know what to say to that. But, then, I never have known, which is why I haven't said it.
You do this sort of thing a lot and it is much more about enhancing your ego than about enhancing the status of women, which you seem to be not terribly knowledgeable about how to do effectively.
I'm offering a formal apology: if I have misrepresented your position while pointing out the insidious look alikeness of the argument offered at the top of this thread: I apologize.
But your gender identity means little to me nor will it soften my tone if you want to defend that argument. It is at its core an argument that deserves to be censured. It is another plank in the structure that blames victims of sexual assault.
My actual position is that a good argument against the top comment here is that a) this is an incredibly bad place to be trying to make such a point and b) if you want to make such a point, even under better circumstances, you really, seriously need to up your game as to expressing yourself clearly, sensitively and in a nuanced manner.
But the reality is that there are studies suggesting that porn has reduced the incidence of rape and that conservative eras where good girls cannot put out have a great deal more prostitution. So, the essence of his position is not incorrect. It in no way justifies this heinous crime, but raking him over the coals over the deficiencies in his writing also in no way will improve his ability to express the idea effectively and appropriately.
Thank you for the apology. Rest assured I have no desire to have you "soften your tone" over my gender.
> My actual position is that a good argument against the top comment here is that a) this is an incredibly bad place to be trying to make such a point and b) if you want to make such a point, even under better circumstances, you really, seriously need to up your game as to expressing yourself clearly, sensitively and in a nuanced manner.
I have a great deal of difficulty reading this position from your response above. But I will take you at your word. Thank you, I appreciate the time you spent further clarifying your point to me.
> It in no way justifies this heinous crime, but raking him over the coals over the deficiencies in his writing also in no way will improve his ability to express the idea effectively and appropriately.
I am not here to or improve anyone. I am here to coldly and meticulously point out misogyny and rape culture of Hacker News wherever I see it. I am not interested in correcting behavior beyond that. It's not my place or my desire to be anything other than to throw a bucket of cold water on every case of it I see.
If you feel a higher calling, I wish you good luck. I no longer care to attempt to carefully untangle if someone is an MRA or if they are just using arguments very much like an MRA uses.
If you were slightly more careful about throwing ice water on the position and not the person, you and I would likely have zero friction. I have a different agenda from you, but our agendas are not incompatible.
You were quick to leap to conclusions about me and tar me. I see this as fundamentally problematic, regardless of your agenda, and quite counterproductive if you want to end rape culture.
Not that you are in any way required to take that point of view under advisement or act on it.
I was actually rather careful to address ideas specifically rather than individuals. I only used the poster as a passive subject in an accusation of an MRA agenda.
> I see this as fundamentally problematic, regardless of your agenda, and quite counterproductive if you want to end rape culture.
That is your opinion. I think shame has its place. We are on a curious website where we can actively call people names if we are discussing technology and it is considered par for the discourse. But once the space of "politics" (read as, "fundamental human rights") enters the equation then suddenly we must all suddenly respect everyone's right to any opinion no matter how oppressive or facile. I reject that notion.
I will not be able to respond to you anymore today. I am rate limited and I'm fairly sure this is my final post for the day.
It's super weird to me that you perceive me this way, because my working model for you on this site is that I'm generally pretty happy to see you appearing in threads, and that we have an unusual amount of agreement with each other.
I do not care about your assessment of how well I'm enhancing the status of women. I'm not an "ally", just a commenter with opinions. You can score me an "F" on the rest of it --- I take no offense.
PS:
For whatever it's worth, I simplied replied to the last comment on the thread --- I didn't single you out. But the thought did go through my mind that I should be relieved I was responding to you and not Dave, because Dave would flip the fuck out if I stepped in. :)
Well, this is completely news to me, because it does not match up with your behavior. The vast majority of the time, you appear to ignore me entirely. The only time you engage me, it appears to be to put me in my place. I cannot recall you ever expressing agreement with me on the site.
If I simply have not noticed it, I would be thrilled to pieces to see evidence that it occurs and I simply missed it. Because I am entirely unaware of it, but painfully aware of the negative effect that the shunning of women by top ranked members has here.
My mental model is that I don't generally respond to comments I agree with; I just upvote them. But maybe I'm doing something that makes it seem like I'm me-tooing some comments and not yours? I'll be more mindful!
I'm married to (and business partners with) a woman in a competitive part of tech. I do not need to be convinced that this kind of stuff happens to women, or that I might be contributing to it myself by some stupid habit of expression. To whatever extent I've done that in the past: I'm sorry!
I actually do worry about point-scoring with comments about misogyny, by the way, so much so that right after I wrote my comment towards the top of the thread, I sanity checked it with Erin, who has taken me to task before for appropriating her anger at how women are treated in our industry and scoring RT's and likes with it. She said this particular case --- and that comment at the top of the thread --- were so bad that I was in the clear this time.
If you see me doing that somewhere else on HN, you'll be doing me a favor to point it out, and I'll do my best to listen and respond civilly.
I disagree with Michele, and think that if you ever have a comment like that to do over with, maybe save the concerns about the reputations of people accused of sexual assault for stories that aren't about women shamed into suicide for their own rapes.
Spent the month of March in India this year. It's so sad how the poor, women, and the overall environment are treated there. I think India has a lot to offer the world, but they've got a long way to go cleaning up many aspects of life there.
This makes my blood boil. This is the kind of thing that makes me surprised there aren't more vigilantes. Not from that dumpster fire village of course, but from some nearby place whose reputation is tarnished by association. I wouldn't condone that but given how furious I am right now I can't imagine being physically and emotionally close to the situation in the first place and there not being someone (perhaps more unstable) that wouldn't just go and take vengeance.
> if by any chance they do lay their hands on a phone or use ear phones to listen to music, then they are branded 'characterless'"
I apologize for the incident, disgusted as I am with this, I just can't seemingly imagine what the women in the article went through. These things shove my proud Indian head into my own @#$%@!
Yet would like to lay a different perspective:
I am an Indian, an average tech professional, doing well in a good job, in a good city.
Yes, the majority of my country is conservative.
Yes, we have views that are biased against women.
Do we have laws to protect them? Yes, we do.
Do we have agencies to enforce them? Yes, we do.
Do we have resources to support such agencies? Yes, we do.
Yet we see these incidents happening in tens of villages, towns, cities happening every day.
Sadly "MOST of them unreported", let alone, being investigated, and the perpetrators getting tried and punished. Trust me on this one, most walk away free, and that encourages them to do it yet again.
The BIG question is then why is a basic safety not in place? You would say, isn't it the job of the law agencies to deal with this. Ugh, yeah... But blooper, a very good chunk of them are "corrupt".
We are not backward in tech arena anymore, though we have WhatsApp in villages where we still have 2 hours of electricity per day.
The technology is already in place, govt. orgs are all on Twitter, WhatsApp, etc. Do respond to requests and complaints (yeah you can tweet to our railway minister Mr.. Suresh Prabhu and he responds with immediate action, ex: https://twitter.com/baloomahapatra/status/792361492796637184)
It's just that the majority of masses are not "technically" educated enough to put it in use. They have access to weapons already (WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook), but just choose to use them against the good use they should be put to. You don't need guns when you have a pen (now internet).
To me there are two possible ways to bring in some change to my sick country:
Yes, bring in the knives/guns, castrate the f@#$%ing bastards.
2) Educate, everyone when giving them access to the technology, the apps, the whole internet what they should be doing with it.
The later is a more important step too. Google started an initiative to provide free high-speed internet access at major railway stations, and here is what Patna (capital of Bihar state) did with their free wifi card:
http://www.huffingtonpost.in/2016/10/17/patna-is-the-no-1-us...
Yes, Porn.
~~~
The whole point that I want to lay on the table, is we DESPERATELY need to bridge the gap between the cultural conservative "backwardness" and the rapid pace at which we are being given these tech gizmos to play with.
I beg with my folded hands to the govt. To please use my tax money (increase it if need be), to educate the agencies, the village elders, the women who go out to those "doomed" towns of mine, and most IMPORTANTLY the god damned f%$#$# bastard perpetrators that the tech is there to make this country a much better place than it is.
I am doing what I am able to, but if you are reading this please wish my country gets well soon.
I am a proud Indian, in just 70 years we are beating the world to Mars, yet we have burning infernos in the towns, villages, and there are no fire trucks nearby.
> I beg with my folded hands to the govt. To please use my tax money (increase it if need be), to educate the agencies, the village elders, the women who go out to those "doomed" towns of mine, and most IMPORTANTLY the god damned f%$#$# bastard perpetrators that the tech is there to make this country a much better place than it is.
May I respectfully suggest that this is the wrong way to try to solve the problem.
Governments do not fix societies--they break them by the ruling class's manipulating society to remain in power. We see this even in the "first-world" nations like the U.S.
In contrast, societies fix governments when the governments are comprised of the societies they govern. Of course, this is only effective up to the level of virtue of the society in question.
Expecting government to fix society is putting the cart before the horse. Thinking that the government is (or should be) the horse that drags along the society cart is part of the problem. It's like expecting the tail to wag the dog. On the contrary, society is like the horse which drags the burden of a cart behind it.
Fixing a society requires the good members of it to get their hands dirty, not to outsource the job to their government. Easier said than done, but no less true.
But when the society is way too huge, it's a different game altogether. Compare 1.25 billion people to 310 million in the U.S
In a complex society as India, the challenge to actually execute a "good" change is closer towards the impossible side.
We have 18 official languages spoken in 27 different states, where the dialects change every 12 km (7.5 miles). We have at least 5 major religions, not to mention countless castes and ethnicities. There are just literally thousands and thousands of groups.
While the common vested interest of staying in power remains the same, the number of good members who can make a significant (practical) impact with honest intent is simply insignificant. And on top of that, these few members are split amongst these many many groups, creating an utter chaos.
This may not be the case for other societies for instance in U.S where most players in the society are literate and educated sufficiently to the leverage tech to get a clear picture of what actually the govt. is up to.
Sadly in India, most well-educated masses including myself lead lives that feed their families, which leaves very few brave members to clean up the mess that we have created.
And of course, the bad members use this opportunity to bend the govt. and the society to their best interests.
So while a perfect solution would be to practically difficult.
But, as an honest citizen, I think that education can do wonders. If people are empowered to challenge the govt. when it fails its job, then I think new good members will be born.
Don't you agree? Sorry about the long post, I agree that asking govt. to educate society is not the solution, but "educating society to use technology correctly" on an emergency basis is. Given the state of the affairs, govt. (at least the current one) is perhaps the best vector to deliver it.
Yes, and thanks for your comment. It is indeed a very complex problem without any simple solutions.
Education seems like a good start, but of course it raises the questions of who will teach and what they will teach. As history shows, teaching the wrong things can have very bad results. If the people making the decisions and doing the teaching are good, maybe it will turn out well. But if those people are not good, the end result could be tragic on a colossal scale.
> If people are empowered to challenge the govt. when it fails its job, then I think new good members will be born.
This is very important and insightful. I think it's also important that government be close to the people, i.e. power being distributed among many smaller bodies.
> Here's a tip for the indian women living in such fuck towns. Get a sturdy piece of food and whack some long rusty nails through it. Learn how to swing it. Carry it when you if you need to walk during dark/after hours.
Pretty sure this will get you raped and killed. Do you really think you can defend yourself from 3 men with some rusty nails ?
The problem here is a cultural problem and you can (try to) solve it by changing the culture through education and law enforcement.
I agree, though guns work better along this mindset because:
1. loud (even if you miss, people know something's up).
2. they don't require much physical strength.
TBH, a loud device will probably do more good for deterrents than attempting to beat attackers with quiet sticks and nails.
Active deterrents help, but limiting the places it can happen will do better than law enforcement ever will. Consider installing more toilets instead of shitting in open fields. Not only does it increase safety but there's a multitude of health benefits.
>> Do you really think you can defend yourself from 3 men with some rusty nails ?
It's called a "Morning star" and is a medieval weapon. And yes if the men are not equipped with more confident weapons I'm sure I could defend myself. Or at least very least inflict some "might think twice before attacking" level of damage.
And the woman should have confronted the guy when it was only one of them (preferably with this weapon) and made it clear that she'll put up a fight. Had she done this, she could probably still be alive.
3 vs 1? You obviously have no fighting experience, unless the one is trained it doesn't matter what weapon they have the three can easily out manoeuvre them with a little common sense.
When you have those odds everything is in your favour, the defendant has to be alert and "ready" at all times which is significantly tiring. Disarming is incredibly easy and how to do it is very obvious - all you need is one of you to enter any form of hold and the others can compensate and disarm easily.
Exactly the opposite, I have fighting experience (practiced krav maga for 5 years, where we in fact trained N vs. 1 situations) to know that yes many can ultimately overwhelm (me or anyone else) but also that I will get my licks in too.
The point is not that it will absolutely save your ass, but the point is improve your chances a lot from it ever happening by simply making sure that the opponents will have to pay a price.
I get the desire for vigilante justice when official justice doesn't do the job. But the way you phrase it (a tip) turns it into a sort of victim blaming.
People in our civilized society are not expected to carry weapons for their own safety. Some choose to, but we don't blame those who were victimized while not carrying one and suggest that they should.
If another society isn't quite 100% civilized yet, we should encourage better policing, not for potential victims to carry weapons. A police force who valued human rights properly would make such crimes a top priority. The particular crime described, with video evidence and a perpetrator recognized around the village, probably requires only a few days of police work to track down. Compared to the enormous damage caused, it's shameful that the police haven't acted.
>>People in our civilized society are not expected to carry weapons for their own safety. Some choose to, but we don't blame those who were victimized while not carrying one and suggest that they should.
Not only do the women get raped on daily basis but they also get blamed for instigating the crime. Does that seem like a civilized country to you?
>> If another society isn't quite 100% civilized yet, we should encourage better policing, not for potential victims to carry weapons.
Yup, tell that to all the thousands of women who get gang-raped in the meanwhile. I'm sure they'll appreciate.
"Civilized" doesn't mean that no crimes ever happen. It means that when they do, the victims have recourse to the law. In the long term, the result is fewer crimes.
I've been to these kinds of villages, albeit in Maharashtra and MP rather than UP. When the rapist is in front of you, the police are hours away. There is no 911 you can call for an instant response, just giving cops directions to your location might take minutes.
(Western style addresses are not very common here.)
But yeah, let's let petty western ideologies (boo for guns and other cultural expressions of lower class whites!) stand in the way of women protecting themselves from gang rapes.
Facebook shouldn't just be holding developer conferences every year. This is way outside the scope of what Tech Companies skill sets can handle. There has to be open public acknowledgement of that at the highest levels and not just the usual PR.
Unintended consequences of tech have to be treated in the same way we treat high priority bugs.
While I don't disagree with you at all, the fact that "ministers in Indian Parliament watch porn" is meant literally makes me wonder what kind of overlap there is. These are elected officials watching porn on their phones during parliamentary sessions. I'm not saying that one causes the other, just that they both might be symptomatic of a related root cause.
The culture gets worse because those committing crimes get away so easily. More than 80% of rape incidents go unreported, and a small fraction of the accused in the remaining ones are convicted.
And a fair number of ministers have been accused of rape.
Just in the interest of playing devil's advocate here, do you truly believe that porn does not play at least some role in fostering the culture? I don't know the answer to that, but even if you don't rape anyone, you could absolutely still play a part in creating a culture that blames the victim. After all, if we believe in a culture of influence, then to some extent the media and people we surround ourselves with must play some role in shaping individual attitudes and behaviors, which can then feed each other to reinforce the culture.
Is our porn a reflection of our culture, or are we reflections of our porn?
Think about it, watching porn is a relatively new phenomenon in remote Indian villages. Do you really think this could have contributed in any way to create a culture of gang rape and of woman shaming ?
Banning (or blaming) porn just shifts the focus from the real problem here.
> Is our porn a reflection of our culture, or are we reflections of our porn?
Internet porn might be new there, but porn/erotica certainly not. Just like Victorian erotica these villagers too will have had at least three possibility to access pornographic materials.
That's actually part of the reason why western women get harassed frequently in India, which is not really a new thing (and buy to neglect that Indian women get harassed a lot) - the men have primarily access to western porn and that's often the only white women they've seen, so if they encounter a real westerner they think she'll behave like those in the magazine's/movies/...
That's certainly true. It is a phenomenon that predates pornography, though from the news coverage I'm given to understand it happens more now? Or perhaps it's just shining light onto a long standing problem. I don't know enough about the culture to really say, just trying to understand it.
It seems like the BBC is just bringing up the name of the popular chat app as a way of generating more clicks. If their goal is raise awareness for the woman who died and people like her, that's noble but a bit misguided. If their goal is simply to generate more viewership and revenue for their website (which it seems like it is), it's deplorable.