mistermack

The evidence is in your own head, but if it's not there, that's nice. Genetically though, you are no different to the hunter gatherers from 100,000 years ago, who used to kill and sometimes eat their neighbours. And you have the same embedded tendencies. Work isn't binary. It can work a bit, and that's the point.

You really do try to twist things. Why not debate the statements made, rather than your own version? I've not only not said that, I've been absolutely clear that we should not stop trying. Most men do have the tendency, and therefore the potential. But most men don't act on it, and don't want to act on it. Most men also have the tendency and potential to act in the opposite way. We have all sorts of tendencies lurking. I didn't say the second bit. There is point in trying to stop them. But don't hold your breath. Don't even expect it to happen in your lifetime.

It doesn't, unless you are trying to twist it. Girls will be girls. Is that an excuse or a fact?

Boy will be boys is a self evident fact, if ever I saw one. And the boys that we are talking about, those with the potential to assault and rape, are the section of the population who are least likely to respond to persuasion.

Well, it's a fact. When facts are part of the problem, I think you need to explain how you can change those facts.

Well, men DO assault women. That's why we have the thread. Is it your point that the best course of action for the public is to pay no heed to safety precautions, because we shouldn't need them? And instead to educate and campaign more against male sexual violence? Good luck with that. Violent sexual predators are usually open to persuasion. Especially after a heavy night of drinking, with no success with the women.

I'm not sure what you're trying to establish. I've not claimed compulsion. Sexual assault is a latent tendency in most men, the vast majority of whom wouldn't dream of following it or indulging in it. With different upbringing, it might have come to the fore. I know a lot of women fantasise about being raped. But they keep it as a fantasy, knowing that the reality would not be what they imagined. One very intelligent girlfriend told me exactly that. Her fantasy was being forced, not too roughly, by someone she fancied anyway. Plenty of men have similar thoughts, about forcing women, without actually going down that road, or getting anywhere close to it. Others follow up on that tendency. You would not exist today, if your ancestors never raped or got raped. Humans are just apes, after all. We haven't been selectively bred to be less violent or sexually aggressive.

Me neither. But others do. Maybe with a different upbringing, we would both be more of a threat. In any case, human nature is varied, because our genes are varied. "Local authority maintained schools in England are obliged to teach sex and relationship education (SRE) from age 11 upwards, and must have regard to the Government's SRE guidance. Academies and free schools are not under this obligation. If they do decide to teach SRE, they also must have regard to the guidance." https://contact.org.uk/advice-and-support/your-child-and-your-family/growing-up-sex-and-relationships/sex-and-relationship-education-in-school/

It wouldn't. That's the point. Nothing except GM will change human nature, and the attempts to affect behaviour are already constantly being made and updated, at education level. There's always scope for improvement, but it's not as if nothing is happening. I would of course discuss consent with my sons, and daughters. For their own benefit, as much as anything else. Any male who doesn't get good advice about consent is being failed by those involved in his upbringing and education. But there are some out there who would still end up attacking women, no matter what help and advice they got.

I think it's a question of how you can actually make a difference. If you imagine you can somehow change human nature, or behaviour, it needs more than slogans and campaigns. We've got all that already. If I had teenage daughters, the only thing that I could do to actually make them safer, is to make them risk aware. I know full well that there will ALWAYS be some predatory men out there, no matter how much society castigates them. One thing I would personally advocate is to lock offenders away for a much longer time. There is a serial rapist taxi driver in the UK, who was drugging and raping women in London in huge numbers. The police estimate over a hundred, but he was convicted of nineteen offences. He was given an indeterminate sentence, with just eight years as a minumum. He pleaded not guilty to all 19 offences that he was charged with, never admitted to any more, and yet he's being paroled having served the minimum. If you want to make a difference, campaign for stiffer sentences, and far less lenient parole conditions. Here is the most prolific drugger and rapist in modern times just serving eight years. It's a joke. There are a lot of prospective rapists out there who will conclude that it's worth taking the risk.

People can argue all they like about how the only person responsible is the rapist. I think that's a typical strawman argument, against an argument that is clearly not being made. People get all upset, if you criticise a victim for taking silly risks, and twist the argument, to pretend that you are excusing the perpetrator. You can do both, you can condemn the perpetrator, and also criticise the risky behaviour of a victim. To keep pretending that you cant criticise the victim, without defending the perpetrator, is definitely straw man tactics. It's attacking an argument that's not being made. I watched on tv yesterday, a program about a serial rapist. More than one of his victims blamed themselves for taking a risk, which ended up leading to a life-changing attack. They were in no way defending the rapist. One got into his car because he came across as so nice and normal. Her words were that she was embarrassed that she of all people would get into a stranger's car, something she never believed she would ever do. The other actually got a lift home, but then let him in for a drink of water. You can bang on all you like about how it's his fault, not hers. ( as the cop actually did ). But she wasn't impressed, and said that if she had taken her own advice, it would never have happened. I prefer the opinion of someone like that, who's been there, done it, and regretted it. That's the real world speaking.

I do share the hunger and enthusiasm of others for more knowledge of exoplanets. But I also have a feeling that as time goes on, it's going to feel like a child being shown pictures of ice-cream. The pictures will get more and more vivid, but you will never get to taste it. I think the future of human/space interaction is space stations, not planets. I think space stations will get bigger and bigger, once we get the hang of mining the Moon and smaller bodies of the solar system for raw materials. Eventually, they will be so good, that the craving for a new Earth will be eclipsed. There is room around the Sun for millions, if not billions of gigantic space stations, that can be designed to harvest free solar energy, and produce exactly 1g of artificial gravity by rotating. It will be much much better than starting again on a "new" Earth. A trillion people could easily live in space stations circulating the Sun without any overcrowding. We will just need the source for raw materials, without the problem of the huge cost of getting them into space, from the Earth. The Moon is the obvious place to start, as well as any other solar body as small, or smaller.

I do blame victims, and I think it's right to blame victims, when they take silly risks. If you dash across a zebra crossing without looking, you take a silly risk, even though you have the right of way. It doesn't absolve the driver who hits you, they should be ready to stop. But when you take an obvious risk, even though you have a right to do so, I think you are partly to blame. Like I said, a lot of law hinges on what's reasonable. It's not always black and white. A person is innocent till proven guilty. But if I knew that someone had just been acquitted on charges of paedophilia, and I allowed him to babysit my kids, and they got abused, I would blame myself, as well as the paedophile. Because the risk should have been obvious, and I ignored it.

Sex is such a complicated topic. Because our attitudes towards it are complicated. It's illegal for a woman to walk about naked. Why? Not for her protection. But it may be partly that. But the same rule applies to a man. But a man can show his nipples, a woman can't. But in some places she can. But in other places, she must be thoroughly covered up, ostensibly for her "protection" which she hasn't asked for. Up to a point, we have a similar thing in the UK about crash helmets and seat belts. You have to wear them, for your own protection. You don't get a choice. The law says you must take those steps to protect yourself. The decency laws could be looked at as something similar. You are forced to protect yourself, whether you want to or not. If another motorist crashes into you, and you are not wearing your seat belt, it doesn't absolve him of blame for his poor driving. But it does partly absolve him of blame for the injury you suffered. Because you didn't take the precautions that the law says you must. So the principle is already out there, in law, that you can be partly responsible for your own calamity by not taking reasonable precautions. It doesn't in any way absolve the guilty party, but it is taken into account in law in those sorts of cases. Like a lot of law, it hinges on what is considered "reasonable" behaviour. (at the time).

That could be a factor, but with suitable insulation design and convection inside the cabin, I doubt if it would be much of a problem. A few solar powered fans would sort it out, if it was.

Yes, I should have made it clear, I meant coat the dark side in dark non-glossy coating, and the sunny side in a highly reflective surface. Ideally, to aim at a body that is neutral, radiating exactly what it absorbs without any need for active management, failing to about 20 deg C.

There are indications you can take as clues. In wikipedia, it is claimed that without greenhouse gases, the surface temperature of the Earth would be about −18 °C. But against that, the surface temperature of Halley's comet was measured at nearly 80 °C when roughly our distance from the Sun. And the International Space Station has a powerful system using ammonia circulating through external radiators to dump heat, without which it would seriously overheat. So it seems that the Earth is much better at dumping heat than the space station. Which makes one wonder, why don't they coat the space station in darker material to make it lose heat faster, and not rely on radiators? Maybe it would get too cold when in the Earth's shadow.

It's a complicated scenario. If the suit lost power, it would soon be venting gases. That would cause the body to spin. So the heating and cooling would average out around the body. The object would simply reach an equilibrium temperature. If you have a situation where heating is 1500 watts and cooling is 100 watts, the temperature will rise very quickly. Then, the 100 watts radiative cooling figure climbs rapidly, and eventually reaches equality with the heating figure. The surface of the Moon is about 100 degrees c during the day. Even though the subsurface is very cold, and conducts heat away. Most of the water would escape as vapour very quickly, so the dry matter that was left wouldn't freeze, it would just get cold and hot quickly as it went in and out of the Earth's shadow.

I think the confusion comes from people expecting gender to be binary, either male or female, when it clearly isn't. It's binary enough, to maintain the survival of the species but that's all. Like everything else in nature, it's fiendishly varied. Variation is a huge evolutionary advantage, so it's built into our genetics. It doesn't matter whether it would be better not to have variation in a particular case. It's going to be varied anyway. The general advantage of variation overrules the specific case. That's what happens when you have evolution, rather than design. People who are born with a brain that identifies as female, but in a male body, with male organs and genetics, are exactly that. If your brain tells you you are female, that's a fact, and just as much a fact as your organs indicate a male. You are what you are. But you can't change your brain, whereas you can with modern surgery change your organs. That doesn't match your genes, but it does match your brain. You simply are what you are. We instinctively try to classify other people as man/woman, when in real life it can be a grey area. You can have a female brain and male genetics. And in varying degrees, because what's in your brain isn't binary. It's difficult. Socially, we say "he" or "she" so you are forced to confront it in normal conversation, whether you want to or not. I have a transgender friend who is still confused, even after surgery. I feel awkward having to choose whether to say he or she, as you don't know what to expect anyway. He is simply what he is. (or she).

I don't see it as "voluntary blurring of the vision". What you are doing is changing the focal length of your lenses, which we all do all the time. If you hold your hand up at arms length, and focus on that, the rest of the room is blurred, but your hand is clear. If you now look at the walls, your hand is blurred. So no matter what you do, some of your vision is blurred, and some is in focus, at any one time. It's easy to focus on an object, but no so easy to de-focus from it, while looking at it. Your brain is helped by having an object to focus on. There is no real evolutionary advantage in blurring your vision, unless you do it by focussing on something else. So it's perfectly easy to blur your vision on A particular object. Just find another, which is at a different distance, and focus on that. If you can do it without the second object to aid you, you are just focussing on an imaginary object, at a different distance. You can do it, but it's easier with a real object to help you.

Burglary is different. The question of consent rarely arises. And it's rarely one person's word against another. The courts actually require a higher standard of proof than that, in burglary cases.

what's the alternative? I have several police in my family, and they all say "a high proportion". Maybe there are figures for it. And of course there will ALWAYS be a hazy line between informing and dissuading. Because in many cases, informing DOES dissuade people from pursuing a case. That's just a fact. When it becomes clear what's involved, a lot of women drop out. The reasons are varied, but it's a fact. So there will never be a black/white situation. So if you are handling the case, you have to compromise between being frank and realistic, and putting off your witness from proceeding. Like I said, there's no alternative to that compromise. So, you end up trying for what you think is the best compromise. And every different person will have their own opinion of where to pitch it.

On the subject of women being dissuaded from pressing charges, I don't think people are fully aware of what happens in real life. A high proportion of complainants who DO continue with a case, drop out before it gets to court. Often, without telling those who are expending huge sums of public funds on their complaint. The just don't turn up on the day. All of that wasted money could have been spent helping cancer patients, or care of the elderly, or of children. etc. etc. It doesn't just frustrate the police and crown prosecution service. It hurts other people. Many of the women who do drop out suffer a lot of stress and anguish before they decide to drop out as well. It's in their own interest to be made fully aware of what they will have to go through, and the chances of the accused walking free at the end of it all, and how THAT will make them feel. So for everyone's sake, it is owed to the accusers to give them a clear and realistic picture of what has to happen, and the chances of a conviction at the end of it all. And the sort of grilling that they will get in court. You can't just let them go on in in blissful ignorance. But one person will call it responsible informing, another will call it talking them out of it. And women who probably would have dropped out before the court case, might well feel that they've been fobbed off. It's not a perfect world. It a world of compromises. Unfortunately, it has to be. You try for the best compromise. There's no better option out there.

You would think that in a system of multiple batteries, there would be plenty of backup circuits available. There would be no need to put all the eggs in one basket on vital systems. The most vital ability of any sub would be to surface in an emergency, and I can't imagine them designing a system that is anything other than foolproof, or very nearly. Of course, if something explodes and allows a serious inflow, then that would override the ability to surface. Or, fumes might knock out the crew, and cause an uncontrolled descent. But even that could be guarded against. You could have something like a dead man's handle like they have on trains, that would cause the sub to surface if it got no input from the crew.

I seem to remember that the sub radioed about problems before the event, and then that the problems were resolved and they were proceeding to a base. If that's true, it pretty much rules out the remote possibility of an attack sinking the sub. North Korea is the only country I can think of that would be in the frame for that, and they are a long way away. I just checked wikipedia, and it doesn't make much of the report. It says that the day before, the sub leaked water into the forward storage batteries, igniting a fire. The crew put the fire out, and the sub continued on it's way, using the rear batteries. I would say that that has to be a major candidate for the cause of the loss, and that there is more that they aren't saying. You would think that after a problem like that, in peace time, the safest thing would have been to continue on the surface using diesel power and with plenty of ventilation.