Actually, I thought it was pretty clear, but ok, let's hit them independently:
I ask the same question of you I did of Bookitty: Which, if any of the suggested actions in that article would you have been surprised to see recommended, if you had not just read the survey results the article discussed?
Is a fairly nonsensical and irrelevant question. You could just as well ask whether you'd be surprised to learn that the Earth is round if you hadn't already learned what that's based on. Yes, I probably would be surprised it's round, but that actually is not really saying anything about its being round or not.
Ditto in this case, whether I had been surprised or not to read a conclusion, if I didn't know what it's based on, is not really relevant to said conclusion. It's a fully irrelevant detour, in fact, and I really see no reason to address fully irrelevant detours at all. Seriously, trolling about who can't answer your silly red herrings may be funny and all, but it doesn't make them relevant.
But, if it keeps you happy, although I've already said the relevant parts, let's see:
- "
we need to spot the rapists" sounds like a sensible ideal. I don't know how would one go about that, but the general idea that one needs to spot the criminals sounds sane. And no, I wouldn't be surprised to read that even without any preamble. But reading it does make a point of how endemic the problem is, hence why it's a "need".
- "
we need to shut down the social structures that give them a license to operate" again, sounds like a common sense ideal. If any social structures favour one sort of crime, whatever that crime may be, then it seems common sense to want to change them. Again, hardly the thing that would be surprising without a preamble. But reading the study does make the case that the problem is endemic, hence supports it being actually at the stage of "need to" and not juts "would be nice if someday we got around to that."
- "
Listen [... to what the victim tells you...]" again, sounds like common sense. In no other crime we'd try to judge and blame the victim nearly as much. If someone came and tried to tell a friend that they've been mugged, chances are they wouldn't have an uphill battle ahead of them to prove that they aren't lying and/or didn't actually somehow provoke the mugger themselves. People would at the very least listen. It seems quite natural to extend that to rape victims too. So, no, I wouldn't be surprised to read that without needing any studies. This case I don't even see the need to mention the problem being endemic, because, frankly, even if there were one single victim of a certain crime, it still seems to me like listening is literally the least we can do.
- "
The Pact." It seems to me that if social structures or group customs allowed perps of any other crowd to just stay in plain sight, including of the victim, and keep on looking for more victims, that yes, it should be common sense that such structures need to go away. It's not just about rape. In kleptocracies for example it's common for people and groups to justify corruption, embezzling, etc, and really the only way to make any progress is to change the culture and that pact.
If any group dynamics favour rapists in a similar way, I should say that yes, they need to go.
Again, I don't see why that would be surprising without a study as a preamble, though it would remain hinging on a big "
if". But when a large number of people DO continue to be in the same group or bar or campus or generally community where by their own assessment they raped a median of half a dozen women, and some even ridiculous numbers like 400, would indicate that yes, SOME phenomenon must be at work that allows them to do that. Imagine that happening for any other crime where the victim saw the perp, to see why something isn't quite normal there. Could you imagine some guy who mugged 6 other people on the campus, still hang around the same campus bar looking for more people to mug? And if a system existed where a lot of people CAN hang around the same bars and dorm buildings and whatnot looking for the 7th person to mug, would you not think that SOMETHING is wrong there and needs to be changed?
- "
Change the Culture." Again, it seems common sense, because in any other cases where a type of crime is endemic and perps are free to show their face around as if nothing happened, you can find a cultural component behind it. If a country has endemic corruption, for example, you'll find that it goes hand in hand with a culture that allows or turns a blind eye to corruption. Again, hardly something unexpected without a study behind it anyway, but the studies showing that the crime IS endemic just make it clear that the problem does exist.
As I've mentioned before, though, I would disagree about jokes. I think it's more nuanced. Jokes exist that use something horrible in a joke without actually saying it's ok, and without perpetuating any stereotype. E.g., from another domain, consider Jimmy Carr's "They say there is safety in numbers. Well, tell that to six million Jews." or the reference to the Nazi salute that ends with "Never high-five a rabbi." It's using something horrible in a joke, but he's not actually saying it's ok (in fact the joke works BECAUSE it's something horrible and not ok), nor blaming the victims, nor perpetuating any stereotypes.
But anyway, I disagree there, I'd like to see a much more nuanced discussion of jokes. SOME are a problem, SOME aren't.
- "
Incentives work [... and people do what works ...]" Well, they do. And seeing as that the citation comes from an economist, and it's something we've known since Adam Smith and actually before... again, is hardly something that needed a rape study to be unsurprising.
- "
we need to adopt the stance that sexual interaction ought to always be had in a state of affirmative consent by all participants; that anything else is aberrant." Sounds sane, actually, as it leaves the least margin for error. I don't think we really needed to know how many rapes or rapists exist, to find the idea entirely unsurprising that if one relies on wild guessing what means "yes", there will be a lot of guessing wildly wrong.
Also, how would you cash out the rest of your remarks in terms of predicted observations and falsification conditions? Do you have any evidence that your predicted observations are actually observed, or that your falsification conditions are not?
Pretending not to notice that I mentioned the cognitive dissonance studies repeatedly, does not constitute an obligation on my side to meet you on the unreasonable side. Again: if a more general rule is already supported, I don't need any extra data to apply it on a sub-domain. If I know how gravity works around Earth, I don't have to support that it also works around Alpha Centauri, to everyone who wants to introduce such an exception. The one who wants to introduce an exception, is the one who has the burden of proof.
The
default assumption, the most Occam-conform assumption, is to assume that the rule does apply unless an exception is actually supported.
Same here. If you suspect that things work differently on the domain of rationalizing rape than for rationalizing a crap job or rationalizing a political position (both the actual subject of actual cognitive dissonance studies), fine, such an exception COULD exist, but then it's your burden of proof to falsify the rule on that domain and thus support the exception.