Posts by Bart Janssen
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I caught the end of the free school milk years (they really did just leave it out in the sun)
Pffft In Palmerston North the wind kept it cold any time of year.
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Hard News: Going solar?, in reply to ,
So who would like a funky wood burner?
When we finally build "the house", you know the one you dream about building but it's never the right time, a funky wood burner would be on the list of must haves.
Just one issue, the one we liked from that web site is surely a piece of copyrighted art (rightly so since it is beautiful), so deriving funky designs "in the style of" would be cool/hot but direct copies would be less cool.
And since we wouldn't be building in CHCH the restrictions would be less draconian ... hmmm Dragon fire, good name no?
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Hard News: Going solar?, in reply to Rob Stowell,
We always wanted on of these ‘studio’ fires.
If you are just going for looks then this is the fireplace we've always wanted. Of course our little Ahead home really has no place for it :).
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Speaker: Not even a statistic, in reply to Sacha,
Nothing personal but we do not solve social problems by asking people who know molecular chemistry, etc.
No offence taken at all. I know I'm ignorant on this.
I understand the point about practice based evidence, it is really important to listen to patients. For me the issue with evidence as the driver is that with evidence you end up doing what actually works instead of what you want to work.
In an issue like this with many causes and many solutions it is really easy to be drawn into an ideological solution, commit to that and then fail to notice that it isn't working. Or fail to notice that something that didn't fit your ideology is working better. That for me, is the value of evidence, it allows you to do what works and to stop doing what doesn't work.
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Speaker: Not even a statistic, in reply to ,
I see the rehabilitation of the community; which lets get real, is a bit sick, is shared by both the offenders, victims and all shades of gray.
While I commented on the criminality, I really want reiterate, I am not an expert in this. It really may not be the best solution to focus heavily on the crime of rape, it may well turn out to be much more productive to focus elsewhere.
I don't have the knowledge to make an informed guess. There IS a huge problem with our culture, it will take much more than focusing on the crime only to change the culture in a way that will get us rape-free.
But we have examples where culture can change, making things that used to be casually acceptable, completely abhorrent. Slavery, public flogging, comic sans are things that used to be common and for many people a society without them was inconceivable.
I think it will take many different approaches, some with fail, some will do less than we hope. It will cost money, our tax dollars. It will cost political capital, yes the mean boys will tease you for caring.
But just think about what it might mean for us to be able to say there is no rape here any more.
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Speaker: Not even a statistic, in reply to ,
there is therapeutic value for some victims of violence, when the perpetrator is given some sort of consequence.
Oh yes, definitely. There is also a need to have sentences in line with similar violence. What I wanted to say was that increasing sentences does not reduce the criminal activity.
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Speaker: Not even a statistic, in reply to ,
So how do we use science to reduce the assaults in the first place?
Ah sorry Steven I got that completely wrong.
The key for me is that I do NOT have the necessary knowledge. On this subject I am ignorant. I have read some general stuff from purely the sake of interest. But that in no way replaces a real deep knowledge of the field.
There are however many genuine experts in the field, so first up, I would track them down and ask them what they believe the evidence shows will work.
I would then enact their best ideas (probably several different at the same time) for approaches and then I would make sure we have a stable monitoring system so we can see what works and what doesn't.
From what I have read, one thing stands out. In every study I have seen the likelyhood of committing a crime decreases with the likelyhood of being caught. There is no correlation with punishment (within the ranges of all reasonable punishments). So to me that suggests we should focus on making sure rapists are caught and convicted. We should not focus on sentencing at all. The original poster's story strongly suggests there is a real problem with the way police handle rape complaints and there statistics also suggest that there is a problem with the way our legal system handle rape cases (the later is the subject of a law commission review).
So for me, I think, I would want to see changes to police policy and perhaps a special rape court with different rules. BUT I am NOT an expert and I would defer to real experts. This might be the wrong place to start , it may be better to start in primary school, or on TV, or on billboards, there are people with more knowledge than I who can and should make the call.
How do we use science to solve the problem?
We get knowledge, we get evidence (not anecdotes), we hypothesize solutions, we conduct the experiments, we observe the results, and continue the cycle.
The hard part is conducting the experiments because these are real people we are trying things out on (but frankly it's hard to see how we could do worse) and because it requires money and change. In particular it requires change from two groups that are very resistant to change, the police and the legal system.
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Speaker: Not even a statistic, in reply to Lilith __,
What on Earth do you mean, Steven?
My guess is that I have consciously focused on men raping women in my comments. I do recognise that women are capable of similar violence and that men are also rape victims (from both men and women). But in the interests of addressing the largest portion of the problem first, rather than trying to solve the whole problem at once in all it's diversity, I will continue to focus my thinking and comments on changing society in a way that make men less likely to rape.
My guess is that if we get that right the other rapes will also be reduced and having got to that point we can refocus on the remaining problems.
However, for a (male) victim, that stance must be very painful and for that I'm deeply sorry.
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Speaker: Not even a statistic, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
look what happened when Cunliffe apologised. Reading comments in different places as well as here. he was belittled
Which is yet another example of the rape culture in which we exist.
But is the teasing of the mean boys really going to be enough to make Labour back off?
Making New Zealand rape-free is a good thing, no teasing should be enough to stop them and us.
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Speaker: Not even a statistic, in reply to Danielle,
Why are we still using “teach women to do stuff” arguments anyway? I’m sick of learning all these fucking things. Let’s teach some men to do stuff for a change.
Hear, hear.
This is everyone's problem. It's happening to women in everyone's workplace. It's happening by men in every social circle.
Women are already doing as much as they can to stop rape, if we want to change this culture it has to come from changes to the other half of society.