73 KiB
Strong Female Protagonist is rationalfic right?
-
Author: u/baroqueSpiral *
-
Score: 27
-
Created: 2017-08-25T03:13:40
Post:
Comments:
u/Sophronius [+41] The Need to Become Stronger (4 hours later)
Kind of. It definitely has rational elements, and it certainly tries to be one. But a lot of it is lost in the moral morass of Social Justice. I'll spoiler it just to be sure, but the MC sits down and tries to figure out how to most effectively use her power for good, and ends up tag What's rational about that? She doesn't munchkin her unique advantage of superpowers at all, instead it's only relevant to the extent that it allows people to complain about how privileged she is. If she were rational, she would get involved in politics or something instead.
Also, again as a result of the SJ overtones: There's a very creepy bit where one of the female 'heroes' tag Seriously, that sort of thing creeps me out, and it's totally anethema to what rationality is about.
Edit: Please note that the above criticism does not take away from the fact that the comic is very well made and engaging - I still read it in its entirety, after all!
u/CeruleanTresses [+21] (10 hours later)
I agree that the organization she ends up building is not the highest-utility application of superpowers, but I also don't think it was supposed to be. I think it's meant to be a critical stage in her development, but not her "final form." The "rational" aspect of it is her realization that she can accomplish her goals more effectively by networking with other capes, rather than by trying to independently punch the world's problems to death with a powerset that's not really equipped for effecting large-scale change. She has a long way to go, but she's making progress by correcting that flaw in her approach.
The actions of the character you refer to in the second paragraph are certainly disturbing, but they are not portrayed as heroic in the narrative. They're a reaction to a systemic injustice, sure, but a misguided and self-defeating one. That character is the antagonist of her chapter; she's not portrayed as a wholly unsympathetic sadistic cartoon of a villain, but SFP's antagonists rarely are. She comes across as a foil to the protagonist, an example of what she might become if she gives in to her impulse to solve problems with violence.
u/vallar57 [+9] Unseen University: Faculty of High-Energy Magic (13 hours later)
I think it's a good thing she doesn't go into politics. Having popularity is one thing, but using it correctly requires a very different set of skills and talents that she doesn't appear to have. She would be eaten alive buy the guys she can't even hit in response.
u/CeruleanTresses [+8] (13 hours later)
Excellent point. I think [spoiler](#s "the "Max Incident" is a great example of how she ends up having to resort to violence because she sucks at political skills like negotiating. It does seem like she's since recognized how that deficiency limited her options to ones she found repugnant,") so I hope to see her taking steps to build those skills.
u/Izeinwinter [+32] (6 hours later)
Actually, that is a deconstruction of the entire justification of having vigilantes. Rape has two characteristics which makes it unusual as crimes go.
1: The recidivism rate is very, very high. Rapists are rare, but rape is common, because rapists re-offend over, and over and over. Rapists stop when they are stopped, and not before.
2: The conviction and apprehension rate is abysmal. The formal legal system does a really shitty job of fighting rape, and will often put the victim through hell in the process.
Therefore, if vigilantism is ever justified, it would be against rapists, and it is perfectly logical that in a world with capes, one of them would embark on that crusade. It is really hard to argue against it without completely de-legitimizing caping full-stop. Which is the authors point. Beating up drug-dealers and muggers does not address any social problem which the formal justice system fails at. The cops are, in fact, pretty good at that job.
Uhm. Now I kind of want to write a story about an oracle-expy that goes after financial sector criminals... Who also reoffend a lot and dont serve time very often.
u/Sophronius [+22] The Need to Become Stronger (6 hours later)
Ok, that all sounds fair enough, but that's not really what's bothering me. There are plenty of stories where heroes do violent or evil things, but it's not an issue because the reader is expected to understand that you can't solve the world's problems that way.
It's the fetishization of violence against the dirty mongrel enemy that disturbs me. Especially when combined with the trope that these evil mysterious creatures are widespread on e.g. college campuses, and could be anywhere amongst us.
Or to interpret it more charitably: That particular character is presented as a pitfall that the social justice activist is not to fall into - but the line is drawn precisely at deliberate torture and murder of an otherwise deserving enemy, not at the idea of treating fellow college students as being potential monsters deserving of death in the first place.
u/CeruleanTresses [+11] (13 hours later)
I didn't really get the impression that the comic was fetishizing the violence. The character made spectacular displays of violence and torture because she wanted to make her motives obvious and inspire fear among her target demographic--not because the readers were supposed to be like "nice". Speaking only for myself, even though I despised her victims for their crimes and believed they deserved punishment, the brutal nature of their deaths made me feel uncomfortable pangs of sympathy for them--not triumph or gleeful satisfaction.
I know fiction has a fine line to walk between simply showing extreme violence and gratuitously reveling in it, but I don't feel that this story crossed that line. That might just be my own opinion though.
As for the trope that rapists could be anywhere among us...well, they could be and they are. They're rare, but they don't wear an identifying facial brand or anything.
u/Jiro_T [+6] (2 days later)
As for the trope that rapists could be anywhere among us...well, they could be and they are.
It's also true that rapists could be anywhere among groups of black people just like they could be anywhere on college campuses. But if she was stalking black people for this purpose, we would see a lot of objection.
Going after a particular group implies that that group is particularly dangerous, above and beyond the fact that there is danger everywhere.
u/CeruleanTresses [+5] (2 days later)
I don't recall anything in the comic stating that she was specifically hunting white people. The victims we saw just happened to be white (I think, I forget if there were any POC in the military group). I suspect her victims may be disproportionately white because she's specifically hunting rapists who have already escaped conventional justice.
u/Jiro_T [+7] (2 days later)
I was analogizing blacks to college students, not to whites.
u/CeruleanTresses [+7] (2 days later)
Ah, gotcha--but she wasn't specifically hunting college students either. She killed an old married dude and a bunch of ex-military, too, and she was vetting the fire guy as a possible victim.
u/NightmareofTruth [+3] (3 days later)
Did she target any women?
u/CeruleanTresses [+4] (3 days later)
Offscreen, I don't know--she had apparently been killing for a while before she "stopped making them look like accidents". I'm not aware that she was intentionally excluding women as possible targets; she might have been, but I don't think she ever says so explicitly. We don't actually see her kill any women, probably because rapists are mostly men. (She does try to kill the female main character at one point, not for raping anyone but just to get her off her back.)
She does say that the victims of the rapists she killed were "women, mostly women, but men as well, and kids." I found one example of her referring to her targets as "guys," so it's probable that they have been overwhelmingly or exclusively male.
u/NightmareofTruth [+2] (3 days later)
It's just one thing that kind of bothers me with SFP. I'm not exactly opposed to the SJ themes, but if we're looking at creating awareness, a lot of domestic abuse victims are men. Like, 40%. And a vast, vast majority of abuse shelters are for women - way out of proportion with the abuse statistics. SFP organizes a women's abuse program, I think, when a program to support and protect everyone would do more to break down the perceived line between men and women.
It's a theme that SFP doesn't seem to touch on very much. In its effort to focus on the strong female, it forgets about the weak male. Or that's what I think, anyway - I could be wrong?
u/Sailor_Vulcan [+10] Champion of Justice and Reason (9 hours later)
@Sophronius
I really don't understand how that was what you took away from SFP. The whole "are regular people good or evil" question is as old as dirt and it's not entirely obvious to everyone what the actual answer is because there is evidence for both sides. Also, serial killers ARE people too, and not all of them are psychopaths. In the story the reason the main character even felt an impulse to kill all those bystanders at all was because she felt like they were threatening the life of one of her best friends by inciting violence against her.
SFP is NOT a fic for social justice warrior ideology, it's a fic for social justice. If you cannot see the difference between these two things then you've been fooled by SJW ideology just as much as any true believer.
u/Sophronius [+16] The Need to Become Stronger (13 hours later)
Hey Vulcan. My impression might be partly coloured by reading the comments to those sections and being particularly dismayed by them. I'll agree with you that SFP is much more even-handed than most SJ stories, and the protagonist does try to be a reasonable and decent human being, which is great. And I do think the story is good and well written.
However, the underlying assumptions of SJ ideology still shines through. What we have here is a character tag, and the protagonist going "You know I can totally see where you're coming from but violence is not the solution." Imagine, instead, if a white character were shown killing POCs and another white character had that as a reaction. Would that seem reasonable to you?
As @CeruleanTresses put it, this antagonist is put up as a foil to the protagonist - someone who the protagonist could potentially become. It's something meant to inspire the audience to think and go "Huh, do I agree or disagree with this?" However in doing so it places the Overton window to the extreme left, and anchors you to consider anything less extreme than that as normal.
By contrast, look at how the MCs most controversial action is treated. She... bent a libertarian's arm once. That's all she did, and everyone lost their shit. She couldn't sleep, and literally threw up in disgust of herself. People in the audience reviled her for it. Seriously, I mean, what?
Does it not cause any moral dissonance in you, to see these two completely different actions treated in such a completely perverse way?
u/CeruleanTresses [+10] (13 hours later)
By contrast, look at how the MCs most controversial action is treated. She... bent a libertarian's arm once. That's all she did, and everyone lost their shit. She couldn't sleep, and literally threw up in disgust of herself. People in the audience reviled her for it. Seriously, I mean, what?
FUCK that was so frustrating. [spoilers and ranting](#s "To this day people are still like "oohhhh, the poor libertarian, he did nothing wrong except try to use the slow unnecessary deaths of potentially millions of people to stick it to his ex." Like just because the use of his powers is a matter of bodily autonomy somehow means he's not an abhorrent piece of shit. Like his suffering is the only suffering that matters because they know his face and name, and the millions of people who won't die of organ failure and blood loss now are just an undifferentiated mass. And some of them are still complaining that the fiery hand of God hasn't come down to slap Alison yet, because they apparently can't tolerate any moral ambiguity whatsoever, and if the comic doesn't make a clear value judgment that Alison should burn in hell for twisting a dude's arm then it sucks. As if this comic has ever been about Aesops and not about exploring philosophical dilemmas! As if the fact that Alison faces little chance of retribution for anything she does, and therefore has no "safety net" outside her own conscience if she slides into well-intentioned villainy, weren't half the point of the comic! And also apparently twisting that arm was the worst thing she's ever done, even though she punched a guy to death a few issues ago and also killed a lot of bystanders as collateral damage during her superhero career.")
Of course there were plenty of people taking the opposite side too. But I guess the lesson here is to keep the comments section well divorced in our minds from the actual story, because there's always going to be some real infuriating shit in there.
I will say I don't really see much celebration of that other character's actions these days. The readership seems to largely agree that she was wrong. I think the composition of the audience might just have been different at the time those pages were posted.
I suspect that there's not much crossover between "people who think the other character's actions were good" and "people who think Alison's actions were evil." A lot of the "Alison is evil" rhetoric I've seen has gone so far as to accuse those who don't condemn her of being social justice warriors, for defending the "torture" of a cishet white man.
u/Bowbreaker [+3] Solitary Locust (a day later)
Imagine, instead, if a white character were shown killing POCs and another white character had that as a reaction.
Rapist POCs? Because in that case I see no difference. Hell, I didn't even remember that all of that character's victims were white. In fact I'm just taking your word for it.
Then again, I'm not from America, so maybe this just shows a cultural difference between us.
u/Sophronius [+1] The Need to Become Stronger (a day later)
To be clear: I'm not that sure either. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if there was a POC among her victims.
And the comic does show Moonshadow to be in the wrong, so maybe I'm overstating my case a bit here. I don't think the comic is anti-white or hateful of men or anything like that. But I do find something to be incredibly off about a worldview in which building woman's shelters is a logical thing to do for someone with superpowers, hunting and torturing rapists is considered merely controversial, and taking someone's bodily autonomy (bending their arm) is considered to be the worst thing in the world (TM).
u/CeruleanTresses [+7] (a day later)
Don't know if this makes a difference to you, but--dropping spoiler tags since we're this far down the thread--Valkyrie isn't a women's shelter. It's an organization where biodynamics get matched up with women who've recently left abusive relationships, and protect them during the period where they're most likely to be murdered. So it fulfills a similar need to a women's shelter, but it is something that specifically calls for superpowered individuals, not something just any group of baseline humans could do.
It also arose organically out of the events of the story. Al decided to organize Valkyrie because she was inspired by her conversation with Dr. Rosenblum about the serial killer. If you recall, Rosenblum's side of that conversation was basically "I don't see why I should care about this one serial killer murdering a handful of people, when many more women are being killed by their partners every day and that doesn't get nearly as much attention." Which is a pretty r/rational-style line of thinking, really--being objective in how you allocate your time and resources so you don't focus on dramatic problems at the expense of more serious but "boring" ones.
So I think that got Al thinking about these forms of suffering that are more systemic, less spectacular, don't make the news the way Moonshadow's murders did. Then combine that with Moonshadow calling her out--paraphrased, "you could be doing literally anything else, but you're here, trying to apprehend me." (Of course she was there because she wanted to help her friend, but I do think that hit a nerve.) And those conversations, I think, inspired Al to focus less on the adversarial "find a villain and punch them" approach she's used to, and instead try to address a systemic problem that causes a lot of harm in ways that are easily ignored. It's not the most effective thing she could do, but it's more effective than what she'd been doing.
Regarding the comments section--I mentioned this before, but it was in an edit and you may not have seen it--I really don't think the readers who applauded Moonshadow's killings and the readers who condemned twisting Max's arm are the same people. I wasn't reading the comments during Moonshadow's arc, but I've definitely seen the people who most loudly condemned Al's actions refer to Moonshadow with a similar degree of contempt. That set of commenters aren't motivated by social justice stuff; they're mostly just deontologists who are deeply opposed to the "ends justify the means" approach. I've even seen a couple of them insisting that the utilitarian crowd would hate Alison as much as they do if she'd hurt someone other than a rich white cishet man. (And I'd also bet good money that Rosenblum would have approved of Al twisting Max's arm if she knew about it.)
u/Sophronius [+2] The Need to Become Stronger (2 days later)
It's an organization where biodynamics get matched up with women who've recently left abusive relationships
Cheers, I forgot that bit. That makes slightly more sense, but still not really - funding women's shelters with your millions of dollars and government support would still be more effective, and the thought of "we have a giant squid person here who can shoot explosive water bolts from her hands - let's use her to support women in abusive relationships" doesn't quite seem intuitive to me.
By the way, do you have any idea if the comic's numbers on murder rates for abused women is accurate?
It's not the most effective thing she could do, but it's more effective than what she'd been doing.
More effective than eliminating invisible supernatural serial killers? I dunno, I think it actually does an amazing amount of good to have a photogenic hero like her fighting villains, letting everyone know that an invincible superhero is looking out for them. Look at how much damage the mere fear of terror has done to America - reversing just a bit of that fear could be worth as much as a thousand shelters.
It reads to me like she is more interested in making a great display of being humble and sacrificing, by getting her hands dirty and lamenting over how privileged she is, than in actually using that privilege to its maximum potential. But to be fair, she does worry and wonder about these things a lot, and she really is trying to be a good person despite it all.
I really don't think the readers who applauded Moonshadow's killings and the readers who condemned twisting Max's arm are the same people.
Sure, fair enough. But if you look at how the comic treats the two acts, there's still incredible moral dissonance for me.
u/CeruleanTresses [+2] (2 days later)
I take the comic's numbers as accurate in-universe, but I don't know how accurate they are in real life. I do know that it's true that women are disproportionately likely (compared to men) to be killed by intimate partners and ex-partners.
Re: "More effective than eliminating invisible supernatural serial killers?"--Well, yes, that's what I'm saying. Moonshadow's scary, but she was ultimately killing only a handful of people. Alison has realized that there are more serious, systemic issues that are more broadly harmful even if they aren't as spectacular. As for the deterrence effect--she's tried being a photogenic hero fighting villains for years, and by the start of the comic she'd come to the conclusion that it didn't fix anything. I agree that fear causes a lot of harm and expense, but either Mega Girl wasn't enough to alleviate it, or Alison hasn't made that connection yet. (I do agree that making a lot of money to fund women's shelters would be more effective, but it's probably valuable for Alison to learn all the skills that go into building an organization like this from the ground up--especially anything in the area of negotiation and diplomacy.)
I don't think the comic really treats Moonshadow's and Alison's actions one way or another--I don't think it passes a value judgment. I think Alison treats the acts differently, for understandable reasons. On the one hand she's reacting to the actions of an old friend she knows she's treated badly, whose descent into villainy she feels responsible for. Whereas on the other hand she's reacting to her own actions--actions that created cognitive dissonance because they violated what she thought was one of her core principles. If Alison had slashed a rapist's throat open, she surely would have thrown up, etc the way she did after hurting Max.
u/None [+0] (2 days later)
This entire conversation is giving me a serious eye twitch.
This is /r/rational, right? Can we not say PoC? It's factually incorrect, it's tribalistic, and frankly it's just a rebranding of old racist terminology (colored person has somehow become okay by being person of color, even though nothing has changed).
Just say black person, or something. Please. I come here to get away from ill-considered nonsense like the PoC divide.
u/Sophronius [+3] The Need to Become Stronger (2 days later)
You're confusing me here. I was specifically using PoC (a term I do not like) because I wanted to prevent upsetting anyone. I have been repeatedly told that this is the most commonly accepted term to use nowadays. Have the times changed again when I wasn't looking?
u/None [+0] (2 days later)
PoC is very much an American SocJus term, and the socks would very much like it if everyone just assumed their point of view was accepted as the default by everyone else. That little bit of ironic imperialism.
The rest of the world, most of whom are just a little less obsessed with skin color and a little more obsessed with cultural identity and who stole whose goat fifteen generations back, just use a simple descriptor of someone's skin (if it ever comes up at all). You don't have black Russians, brown Germans, or purple French. You just have a Russian man (who happens to be black), a German woman (who happens to be brown), and a French Canadian (who happens to be purple).
Only in America is so much importance ascribed to one's melanin count, and only the socks want people to make up special words reserved for people of a certain phenotype.
Just say (whatever) person. I've never seen someone get offended at being referred to by their factual phenotypical descriptor (unless you use it as part of an insult, I. E. "Hey, big nose!" or something).
u/Sophronius [+3] The Need to Become Stronger (2 days later)
Oh yeah, sure, it's definitely an americanism. And I totally grog your point about how annoying it is that americans think their pet hobby horses ought to apply to everyone else as well. But I'm just trying to be polite to the people I'm speaking to by using a term I expect them to be more comfortable with, and it's slightly ironic if you complain about my use of a political term while using "socks" as a derogatory term yourself.
In private conversations, however, I do the same thing as you - avoid political terms and just say what I mean. It's almost always better that way.
u/CeruleanTresses [+2] (2 days later)
For what it's worth--I think you did say what you mean, and this criticism you're getting is entirely unwarranted. You weren't talking about one specific race, you were talking about non-white people broadly, and you used a suitable term to cover that entire group. This person's insistence that you use physical descriptors makes no sense when you were not even talking about individuals.
u/None [+1] (2 days later)
You're way too into the tribalism, mate.
Or have you forgotten white is a color?
u/CeruleanTresses [+2] (2 days later)
Haha, where are you even getting "tribalism" from? I've never seen someone so offended by the very concept of having words to broadly describe racial groups. Do you want me to just go down the entire list of several billions of PoC and describe each one by their unique physical characteristics?
u/None [+1] (2 days later)
You're trying to separate people, broadly, into "white" and "not white", an absurd tribal division that ignores almost everything about what defines a person.
Yes, you bloody should describe people by who they are and what they think, not what melanin score they rolled at chargen. Just because it's hard for you to prop up strawmen and socjus talking points without having a big bad whitey to differentiate from the noble colored person (and I'm sure every single non-white person loves being lumped together like that, under a single ideological rally g cry of "at least I'm not white!").
u/CeruleanTresses [+2] (2 days later)
You profoundly, even hilariously misunderstand how and why these terms are used. You seem to think it's some kind of ranking system? Haha, okay. You keep laboring under these weird misapprehensions if that's what you want to do, but I won't be letting you police my language.
u/None [-1] (2 days later)
And you don't see the irony at all, do you?
Allright, whatever. I'm just gonna go ahead and tag you as a racist and ignore you.
Enjoy the rest of your day, mate.
u/CeruleanTresses [+1] (2 days later)
You know, black people aren't the only non-white people who exist...Are we not supposed to use a convenient abbreviated term that refers to all non-white people because, I guess, it triggers you?
u/None [+2] (2 days later)
And there it is. That stupid fucking tribalism of "white vs not-white".
Is white not a color? Have you not noticed white people are at least 40 percent pink?
u/CeruleanTresses [+3] (2 days later)
Now that is just pedantry. I'm sorry that the broadly used term for white people is not "pink", but language develops organically and here we are.
There are many situations in which it is relevant to distinguish between white and non-white people, especially in countries like the U.S. where white people are the majority and there is a history of systemic discrimination in their favor. Or in this case, where the commenter who used the term was specifically addressing that all of the victims of a particular serial killer were white and not anything-other-than-white. Again, sorry if making that distinction triggers you, but I really don't think you should be censoring our free speech like this.
u/None [+0] (2 days later)
Way to avoid addressing anything I've said in favor of burning a strawman and moving the goalposts, son.
u/CeruleanTresses [+3] (2 days later)
Make stupid arguments, get stupid rebuttals.
u/Rouninscholar [+3] (3 days later)
rofl. Favorite part of this is that white isnt a color technically, and neither is pink. (and neither is black, and I mean black as in darkness. I dont know if the various shades of brown count or not). And you should use the terminology of the person bringing up the concern, regardless of your opinion of the concern. if someone says "im concerned that this murderer targeted/didn't target blacks" then that is the topic, you shouldn't complain about the word choice unless it is offending you. someone was concerned about the representation of "people of color" so trying to get them to stop using the term is effectively just saying "stop talking about this"
Wow this is much longer than I meant for it. No, white is not a color, technically
u/Sailor_Vulcan [+1] Champion of Justice and Reason (16 hours later)
Honestly I think you are probably noticing your own confusion somewhere in your mind and then ignoring it. You think reading the comments MIGHT have biased you? I think if you're even worrying about that at all then you should steelman the hell out of that. Honestly, wanting and threatening to kill the angry mob that is trying to incite violence against one of your best friends is wrong, but it's not unprovoked like twisting a random guy's arm AND kidnapping him in order to save one of your best friends from endless torment. While the latter is more defensible from a utilitarian stand point, it isn't as relatable to the emotions of humans who don't intuitively understand scope. I will repeat myself: By treating social justice and social justice warrior ideology as equivalent, you are letting yourself be fooled by social justice warrior ideology just as much as any true believer, and in the process seriously misrepresenting a great work of literature. REVERSED STUPIDITY IS NOT INTELLIGENCE.
Also I would like to add that i myself am an aspiring rationalist and I am also a big fan of SFP and do not think any more highly of the SJW movement then you do
u/Sophronius [+8] The Need to Become Stronger (17 hours later)
I'm not denying that I have my biases, but I think I'm more aware of them than that, Vulcan. I very much appreciate the difference between social justice and SJWs (note I never used the term SJW in my comments) and am grateful for anyone who is still capable in this day and age of making their arguments in a reasonable and rational manner, which clearly includes the authors of this very well-made comic! Nevertheless I still take issue with some of their object-level beliefs (which I'll agree I could have steel-manned better).
Regarding those object level beliefs: You seem to be referring to the case where the MC got angry at the mob that threatened Feral. I haven't discussed this issue (I was talking about Moonshadow) but I found that to be totally reasonable and understandable, and don't blame the MC for killing that one person in the slightest. The thing that made me uncomfortable was the disturbing torture-fantasy played out against suspected rapists, which I don't think is unreasonable.
Anyway, I remember you liking my story, Scar's Samsara, which also touches upon some issues of social justice. Surely I wouldn't be able to write about that in a favourable light if I were "fooled as much as any true believer"?
Edit: I have added a disclaimer to my OP to make it clear that I'm not just bashing the comic.
u/Jiro_T [+11] (a day later)
Rape has a third characteristic: It has a high false accusation rate, and the fact that it may not leave evidence (especially when there is dispute over whether someone consented) makes it convenient to use for false accusations. And that characteristic makes vigilante justice against accused rapists particularly bad compared to vigilante justice against other crimes.
u/CeruleanTresses [+3] (a day later)
Do you have a source on that? Everything I've read says that the false accusation rate for rape is roughly the same as the false accusation rate for other crimes. I'm pretty sure the false accusation for rape only appears to be higher if you assume that all acquittals and dismissed cases were false accusations--which of course is an unjustifiable assumption, since there frequently isn't enough evidence to convict in cases of actual rape.
u/None [+4] (2 days later)
It's hard to get accurate numbers in this, considering rape is viewed as such a "special evil" in society (even though it is at worst a violent assault, but that's another conversation). Being accused of rape will turn the angry mob loose almost instantly, and they'll be out for blood, truth be damned.
I mean, you yourself said in another comment in this thread that "victims" (not alleged, but "victims") go "through hell" when they are part of an investigation of an alleged rape, a statement you're very unlikely to make for any other crime investigation where the victim must testify. If we're already ascribing some sort of special consideration for alleged victims, the reporting skews. Add in the absolute madness of post-hookup regret being spun into rape allegations, and the numbers skew even more, especially with the modern SocJus "listen and believe" ideology.
We'd likely have much better numbers for rape if people didn't think of rape as the "worst thing ever" (which is patently absurd, since murder is the worst thing ever. You can recover from rape, but murder is forever.), and just lumped it in with severe assault/battery of a non-sexual nature.
u/Izeinwinter [+6] (2 days later)
You are talking to two people here. And, frankly, go watch court tv. Most rapes dont go to court because women damn well know the defense council will try to make them out to be a lying slut. In front of a room full of people.
That is an extremely unpleasant experience. The police very frequently do the same thing before things go to court. And every woman on earth knows this is what happens. Nobody sane files those charges without cause.
Apply some theory of mind. Would it be worth it to you? No? I did not think so. There is no emotional payoff to sending an innocent to jail, and there certainly is no hope of reputational or financial gain either. The entire reason this is a common perception is due to adversarial courts. The only defense against a testimony of rape is to undermine the credibility of the witness, and therefore approximately all* rape cases end up including a false accusation of perjury.
*Not saying it never happens. Some people are, after all, insane to very high degrees. But to suppose it is common is laughable.
The only reason women elect to go through with pressing charges is a desire for justice and the fact that - as I said, rapists reoffend. A lot. So getting the guy who assaulted you off the street is vital for the safety of all your friends.
Are you unhappy women tend to view you as a potential predator? That is fair. The large dollop of fear which taints a lot of heterosexual dating is not pleasant. Lending camouflage to the actual predators out there is, however, not helpful.
u/NightmareofTruth [+6] (3 days later)
My objective here is to maintain a rational perspective, for the record. I'm not taking a stance on this issue yet.
And, frankly, go watch court tv.
I'm not American and I couldn't find much information on court TV - just something about how truTV used to be called Court TV.
But is television really a good source? There's an inherent bias here - any material that's worth being televised must have a story. It's hardly going to show you the boring court cases, or the court cases where nothing really happens, or the court cases where it turns out someone was lying all along.
Most rapes dont go to court because women damn well know the defense council will try to make them out to be a lying slut.
Is this what happens? I'm honestly asking. The defense council's job is to present a defense. Whatever defense they present must be supported with evidence.
Or rather, what I'm asking is, what exactly does the defense council do? If they're presenting the possibility that the woman may have lied, that's what they're supposed to do. If they deliberately belittle and try an emotional argument to make the woman seem like a lying slut, then that's awful. But the two are very different things and deserve a distinction.
The police very frequently do the same thing before things go to court. And every woman on earth knows this is what happens.
Do they? Again, it's important to draw a line between trying to establish the facts of the case and actually shaming the victim. Why and how is this established as a fact? I'm sure there are policemen that are awful about it, but I'm equally sure that there are policemen that are sensitive about the subject. It's a traumatic thing.
Nobody sane files those charges without cause. Apply some theory of mind. Would it be worth it to you? No? I did not think so.
I don't think this is a rational argument. Someone who makes a false accusation is a criminal to begin with - they've clearly already thought it through and decided it's worth it. Applying the average person's mindset to it is like asking the average person if stealing or murder would be worth it - most people would say no, because most sane people aren't criminals.
There are examples of women who falsely accuse others, including one who falsely accused fifteen men. I don't have the source with me at the moment since I'm stuck on mobile, but I'd be happy to get some sources if you'd like to continue this discussion.
Somewhat more horrifyingly, there's also precedent of false memories being created by unethical therapists or psychologists. This is perhaps the worse case of all - the trauma is real, and the victim certainly believes it's real, but the perpetrator is still innocent. I believe the study done for false memories was a female scientist. Again, I'll grab the sources if you'd like to make this a discussion.
The only reason women elect to go through with pressing charges is a desire for justice and the fact that - as I said, rapists reoffend.
Well, yes, and it's very brave for the victims to do so. That's why false accusers are so bad - they undermine the real victims.
There's one thing I'm genuinely curious about, and it's the clear difference in cultural perspective between me and a lot of others. I live in a very safe country; we have one of the lowest crime rates in the world. I can't conceive of policemen or courts deliberately making fun of and/or putting down victims.
But my question is - how much of that is an exaggeration? Because remember, there's a cognitive bias in place here. Negative memories are a lot more prominent than positive ones, and negative news tends to be a lot more lucrative. If a victim is treated correctly through the court procedures, there's nothing to write about. So you only really hear about it when things go wrong.
Which is to say, how much is the media a reflection of your society, really?
u/Izeinwinter [+1] (4 days later)
... This looks a lot like a sealion. (if you do not know what that is, it is a deliberate attempt to waste peoples time by asking excessively basic or "what-about" questions. )
But yes, people are routinely total scumbags to women who report rapes. Not just individually, systemically too.
Let me use the example that boils it down to its essence. In order to get a conviction of rape, you really need a rape kit. Do you know what a rape kit involves? It is a checklist and a set of containers for samples.
In order to do a proper rapekit, the person who just got violently assaulted needs to get up, and go directly to a medical facility. Do not take a shower, do not change your clothes. Then you have to tell a complete stranger- a medical professional, but still a stranger. That you were just raped, and you still have your attackers DNA all over you. Then that professional will take your clothes - because those are now evidence. Count your bruises and the location of them. Including the ones you almost certainly have in intimate areas (.. vaginas dont bruise during consensual sex.) And oh yes, take scrapings from everywhere there might be secretions left. It is, even with the nicest doctors possible, not a good time.
And you know what then happens in a lot of US states? Those kits just sit around and never get tested. Because there has not been allocated enough money to run dna scans on them. This, while politicians proclaim their devotion to law and order.
u/NightmareofTruth [+5] (4 days later)
... This looks a lot like a sealion. (if you do not know what that is, it is a deliberate attempt to waste peoples time by asking excessively basic or "what-about" questions. )
And this looks like a passive aggressive insult. quirks a brow Let's lay off the assumptions.
I questioned you because you presented bad, irrational arguments. It doesn't matter if I agree with your position; your arguments undermined the point you were trying to make. It doesn't make your point wrong, but don't expect people to be convinced by those arguments.
Also, like I said: not American. I come from a vastly different culture and have very high expectations of safety and police standards. It's very difficult for me to believe that people can act so callous because it's in direct contrast with how things are here.
So let's get to your example. And let me get this out of the way first; what you describe is awful.
What should we do instead?
I don't have a stance in this debate because I don't know what we're debating. I address arguments that I think are bad and I addressed yours in particular because the other response to you was... I mean, they weren't even bad arguments, they were just factually incorrect.
So yeah. False rape allegations exist. We don't have the exact numbers, but let's presume it's small. Are you saying the procedure should then take the word of the victim and adopt a guilty until proven innocent mindset? Or is there a better solution?
u/JackStargazer [+3] Primordial Apologist (4 days later)
In order to get a conviction of rape, you really need a rape kit.
Lawyer here, you absolutely do not.
It is helpful, but almost never mandatory.
You are being misled by popular culture, movies, and hearsay on the internet. A majority of sexual assault cases are won without direct physical evidence of rape, because a vast majority of sexual assault cases are not about violent assault (what is legally termed rape in many jurisdictions, although the term has caught on socially to mean everything related to sexual assault) but sexual assault in either an existing relationship, related to intoxication or drug use, or by someone either related to or well known by the victim.
The big public cases are stranger rape, but that is not what the reality is for the majority of victims.
u/None [+5] (2 days later)
Three things of import here:
You're forgetting that about 40 percent of rape victims are male, and assuming your hypothetical alleges victim is a poor innocent woman being slighted by the big bad justice system, when in practice it's male victims who are told that they were "lucky" or they should have enjoyed it, and female victims that are rushed for rape kit testing and supported by every swinging dick (outside of situations of judicial incompetence, which is an admittedly common problem in certain jurisdictions).
You're assuming a much higher degree of mental competence and sanity then what they actually possess from people who file false rape allegations.
Are we celebrating perpetuating harmful gender stereotypes now? A random woman on the street should no more assume that every man around her is a potential rapist then a random man should assume a woman in a short skirt is a slut.
u/wren42 [+1] (3 days later)
thousands of rape kits go untested. Women are not supported the way you claim. not even sure what "swinging dick" means in this context, but you've clearly got some weird prejudices here. also your numbers are wrong - 40% is for domestic violence victims. One in five women and one in 71 men will be raped at some point in their lives. Not even close to 40%
you never provided a source for your "high false accusation" assertion.
there's a difference between being afraid of a legitimate threat against your person with a relatively high probability - again one in five women will be raped at some point in their lives - and denigrating/sexualizing women. What even is this argument? It seems to fall back on its own premise.
u/NightmareofTruth [+3] (3 days later)
I have to look for the source again, but wasn't the 'one in five' study referring to sexual assault, not rape? Although that's still awful, don't get me wrong.
Also, remember, you can't really use the rape statistic for women to determine anything about men. Since rapists tend to be repeat offenders, it doesn't mean that a lot of men are likely to be rapists.
u/wren42 [+2] (3 days later)
it's not a statement about the typical man we are considering -- it's the perception of the average woman.
it doesn't matter to the woman if the man who attacks her is a repeat offender or not. the rate of risk remains the same. she has a 20% chance of being attacked. this is certainly high enough to warrant some trepidation and caution. The odds of dying from an injury -- any injury -- is 1 in 20. 4 times less than being sexually assaulted. So, viewing any strange man in a situation that has ANY potential for leading to an attack with suspicioun is more than justified.
u/NightmareofTruth [+1] (3 days later)
That's not how that statistic works. Assuming it's true, based on what you said, 20% is a lifetime statistic - it doesn't mean that she has a 20% chance of being attacked in any given situation. That would give you a much higher chance in a lifetime, like closer to 100%.
I need to brush up on my probability to calculate the actual chance of an attack on a per day or per year basis though.
Anyway. I'm not saying that being suspicious isn't justified. If anything, I encourage it - it's important to be safe. I was just pointing out that the immediate conclusion some people might leap to was wrong.
u/wren42 [+2] (3 days later)
yeah I'm not claiming they have 20% in any situation. I'm saying that fact makes them think "could this be it?" any time the situation gets risky.
u/NightmareofTruth [+1] (4 days later)
I mean, that's fair. And it's important that women know how to defend themselves. The "they deserved it" rhetoric is absolutely disgusting.
u/CeruleanTresses [+1] (4 days later)
I have to say, knowing how to defend yourself only goes so far. Most men are so much stronger than most women that often the safest, smartest option is not to fight back. It's common for women to "cooperate" with their rapists as a survival mechanism, because fighting could get them killed. And of course many victims are already incapacitated at the time of the rape (also an issue for male victims).
I think the most useful strategies for women are proactive ones. Watch while the drinks are made, meet new guys in public places first, trust our intuition when we get the "creep vibe," watch out for each other when we're out as a group, etc. Not that it's our responsibility to stop men from raping us, but I'll take whatever reasonable precautions I can to minimize my risk. Or I would if I either drank or dated, I guess.
u/NightmareofTruth [+1] (4 days later)
Taking a reasonable level of precaution is about the best anyone can do, really. I've seen people encourage others NOT to take precautions because it's 'not their responsibility', and I mean...
Don't get me wrong, it shouldn't be on them. Victims are never to blame for the actions of their attacker. But I DO blame the person that decided their idea of what should be the social norm was more important than the safety of their friend, because no matter what the world ought to be like, we're not there yet.
u/CeruleanTresses [+1] (4 days later)
I think it depends on the precaution--there are people who will basically expect women to hide in a locked basement every night. At some point you have to draw a line in the sand and say "I'm willing to accept this much risk in order to have a life." But reasonable precautions shouldn't be discouraged, yeah. Certainly nobody should be like "why didn't you..." after someone is raped, but it would be foolish to discourage precautions in advance.
u/TheAtomicOption [+2] (10 days later)
thousands of rape kits go untested
Only because they don't need to be.
Why don't they need to be? Because the rapist confessed, or the accuser refused to help prosecute and the charges were dropped, or it came out that the accuser was making a false accusation, or both parties agreed that sex occurred but disagree about whether there was consent. There are a million scenarios like these, and the ONLY time rape kits need to be tested is when there's a dispute of fact over whether sex occurred between two specific people. Testing ALL rape kits is a total waste of tax dollars, and we should be applauding the fact that the government is practicing discretion in at least this one area.
u/CeruleanTresses [+1] (2 days later)
Spot on. And the idea that droves of women are filing rape charges over "post-hookup regret" is especially laughable. Like, "Oh, I don't want anyone to think I'm a slut, so I'll arrange to have a defense attorney try really hard to prove I'm a slut in front of courtroom full of people I know." Sounds believable /s
u/CeruleanTresses [+2] (2 days later)
OK, so you don't have the numbers. Got it.
u/vallar57 [+4] Unseen University: Faculty of High-Energy Magic (13 hours later)
I don't think so. To me it's really mere vengeance and bloodlust and not wanting to think. It's very easy to device a way to stop and apprehend criminals with her skills that do not require stabbing anyone and would guarantee a guilty sentence in a court. In fact, it can be done with just a mobile phone instead of a knife.
u/None [+4] (3 days later)
[removed]
u/CeruleanTresses [+3] (3 days later)
I think their point isn't necessarily that vigilantism is ever justified, but that killing rapists is sort of a steelman for vigilantism. Like, if it's not justifiable to be a vigilante who kills rapists, how is it justifiable to be a vigilante who kills [insert socially acceptable target for vigilantism here]?
The idea that only some applications of violence--specifically, those that defend against threats to the status quo--are seen as acceptable/admirable is a major theme of that arc. The vigilante says it herself: "You killed so many innocent bystanders [as a superhero], and it was all okay...You ever see a soldier get called a serial killer? ....They're trying to tell people that I'm fighting the wrong war."
Basically, she's arguing that society has shown it has no objection to her methods, so the problem must be with her targets. Hence the deconstruction of superheroes as a concept: The reader, faced with this apparent hypocrisy, has to decide whether the answer is "it should also be okay to murder rapists" or "it shouldn't be okay to murder anyone."
Actually, an anti-financial-criminal vigilante could probably fill a similar philosophical niche. It just wouldn't be as compelling of a story, because most readers wouldn't have the same visceral reaction to a financial criminal as to a rapist.
Re: evidence, the vigilante in this case does go to great lengths to confirm to her satisfaction that the rapists are guilty. Most of that happens offscreen, of course, so it's hard to say exactly what her standards for evidence were. But it's made clear that this is extremely important to her--her own rationalizations for the murders absolutely depend on her believing she's done her due diligence.
u/Izeinwinter [+3] (3 days later)
It... Doesn´t? SFP is a deconstruction / "reality ensues" story of superheroing, it includes this particular rampage against crime as a refutation of the value of superheroes through a steel-man argument. That is, someone going after rapists is one of the things that would happen in a world of capes, because it is the strongest argument for vigilantism and it is still not okay.
She does, in fact have one piece of evidence noone else gets, though. That is, they did not just report this case to the courts, when that failed, they vent to her. And she is fucking terrifying.
A hacker tearing through the one percent of lawbreakers wouldn´t serve that purpose, tough it probably would be really appealing vengeance/wish-fulfillment porn for.. just about everyone. Uhm..
u/TheAtomicOption [+2] (10 days later)
rape is common
No. It's not. If those fake numbers about 1 in 5 or 1 in 4 or however many women in college supposedly get raped were anywhere close to true, no sane parents would send their daughters to college and no sane woman would go.
u/Izeinwinter [+1] (11 days later)
Going to college decreases a young womans risk of getting raped by 20 odd percent. So it is a motivating factor for going. It also increases a young mans risk of rape by over 70 percent, but.. that is probably because non-college educated men will just not admit to it happening even on anomynised surveys.
u/baroqueSpiral [+6] (a day later)
I love the comic and also actually totally agree with you about Valkyrie.
...EXCEPT: why is getting involved in politics your alternative? Assuming you mean liberal politics, that doesn't leverage her superpowers except insofar as they make her a celebrity (granted, the BIGGEST superpower in American politics apparently), which is an advantage they also bring to Valkyrie. But the political system in America is DESIGNED, admirably, to make "politician" not much of a munchkin job (if it were, Indian Quirrell's assessment of munchkinry as a "tyrant"'s mindset gets really literal). Most politicians, even popular ones (a useful quality for winning elections and jack shit else), do not accomplish anywhere near as much as Valkyrie could if well-organized and successful. And there's no indication that her powers OR personality are optimized for politics at ALL - if anything, the opposite - whereas Valkyrie at least does draw on skills (organizing a cape team) she already has.
u/CorneliusPhi [+13] (4 hours later)
On the first point, I think the idea in the story for the reason she doesn't munchkin her powers is that they really aren't useful for anything. Low-grade Superman powers are pretty meh. She'll probably go into politics eventually, but she is pretty young.
On the second, I think that isn't supposed to be a good thing. The author is exploring the idea that giving out superpowers to people from underprivileged groups will obviously upset power structures.
u/Sophronius [+23] The Need to Become Stronger (4 hours later)
Not useful? Pah, they make her famous! They give her instant respectability, government support, and social credit. She can go on shows like Oprah and make millions, then donate that money to charitable causes. She specifically notes that, and whines about, the fact that she can get away with murder because the government doesn't want to make her an enemy. And she completely fails to use any of this for good, instead choosing to spend all her time moping about how much she sucks.
On the second point, yes, sure - the author doesn't explicitly paint it as good. But implicitly it's clearly giving voice to a disturbing fantasy. Imagine if it had been a white character hunting and killing black characters instead - methinks this would have been presented in a less sympathetic light.
u/CorneliusPhi [+5] (13 hours later)
I suppose. In the end she's just twenty. Practically still a child. Not shocking she would make suboptimal choices, especially since she's self-socialized to think of her powers in a negative light.
I think the better equivalence there would be a black superpower going around killing people in the kkk. Murder is wrong yes, but people getting away with being bad because of systematic inequality also sucks. It poses an interesting question.
u/None [+2] (14 hours later)
At least from how it's described in the comments above, it'd be more like a black superhero running around torturing and murdering people suspected of being in the KKK. I feel like I'd be a lot less conflicted about his if the comment said 'rapist' instead of 'accused of rape'. Is it more clear in the original work if these people are almost definitely guilty?
u/CeruleanTresses [+8] (14 hours later)
It is made apparent that the character goes to great lengths to confirm to her satisfaction that they are guilty. This is emphasized as being very important to her. It's also acknowledged that her judgement is not infallible and that she is practically guaranteed to kill an innocent person eventually if she keeps it up.
u/baroqueSpiral [+2] (a day later)
yeah, because it would have been different. (for instance, one of these things actually happens.)
giving voice to a fantasy
that's a funny thing to complain about in an ingroup as kinky as the rationalist community
u/TheAtomicOption [+1] (10 days later)
Forget Oprah, she could join a professional football team as a running back and get millions in salary PLUS millions in ongoing sponsorship deals.
u/mycroftxxx42 [+6] (6 hours later)
As a counter to your points, I would like to remind you of what happened to Feral. She may not munchkin her own powers, but she's well aware of the power of munchkinery. It's even better since she's well aware of the moral issues with how she did it - and I'm pretty sure that she's going to be seeing fallout further down the road.
u/CouteauBleu [+13] We are the Empire. (14 hours later)
DAMMIT, WHY DO YOU NEED TO OBSESSIVELY PUT LABELS ON EVERYTHING?
Seriously, this isn't against anyone in particular, but we have two of those "Is XXX rational fic?" questions every week. Why do people care so much about a label?
I mean, I like SFP and I'm all for discussing it, but "Does it match a vaguely-defined concept that people interpret very differently?" really isn't the best open minded discussion subject.
Grmbl grmbl stop talking about concepts I don't like grmbl grmbl.
u/CeruleanTresses [+37] (an hour later)
Yeah, I'd say so. Given that the central question driving the protagonist's actions is "How can my superpowers be applied for maximum utility?", it's definitely the kind of thing that appeals to this sub. There's also a lot of philosophical tension between deontological and utilitarian perspectives. Keeping it vague to avoid spoilers, but I think people here would particularly enjoy everything having to do with the character Feral.
One thing that distinguishes it from a lot of power munchkinry content is that the main character isn't especially idealized; she is trying to do the best she can for the world, but she is very much human, and her powers don't include either superhuman intelligence or superhuman emotional regulation. So there's a lot of struggle between her lofty ideals and her flawed, human impulses, and and a lot of introspection in the vein of "I need to stay cognizant of this personality flaw I know I have" or "Okay, I see now that this is how I fucked up." I don't dislike brilliant, hyper-rational protagonists, but I've really enjoyed this character's more relatable struggle to do good.
Note that the story spends a lot of time exploring social justice concepts, as part of the broader theme of "how can we actually make the world a better place for everyone?". For me that's very appealing, but I know some people find that kind of thing offputting, so fair warning.
u/SaberToothedRock [+2] (3 days later)
Feral was what made my opinion of this comic skyrocket.
u/Teal_Thanatos [+7] (22 minutes later)
It's good... I've got disagreements on behavior and actions but I think the actions can be framed rationally. I'd go into details but spoilers.
u/wren42 [+5] (3 days later)
So, I just binge-read this comic over the weekend since seeing the post.
I think you could call it rational fic, yes, though the titular protagonist is not herself rational. In fact, she is surrounded by people who approach problems rationally, and she might be the only main character who doesn't.
My main criticism of her is that she doesn't leverage her comparative advantage. Rational problem solving is about identifying strengths and exploiting them to achieve your aim.
Her strengths are obvious, yet she pointedly avoids using them to directly solve problems. The only thing she does that benefits from her abilities is firefighting. Honestly, she should just be doing more of this. Rather than trying to think about the whole world's problems and solve them all at once somehow, she should focus on problems she can solve that others can't.
Disaster relief is something she is trained for and has abilities that would make a huge difference. Simply cooperating with firefighters and the national guard to help with catastrophes could save thousands of lives without the need for violence that she seems worried about. And that's just thinking locally. If she actually got her head out of just helping the western world, she could work with relief groups in at-risk areas and make a HUGE difference. Just transportation of food and medical supplies to hard to reach areas could make a world of difference.
These are obvious things she could do that would be personally rewarding and help others, without all the philosophical hand-wringing over how to fix the whole world with "one punch."
She's really a poster child for hipster college students who want to THINK about saving the world but not actually DO anything directly useful.
u/CeruleanTresses [+1] (3 days later)
I think you make excellent points here. I've had similar thoughts about Alison, and I hope to see her come to those realizations--especially since I think the narrative frames her "one punch" obsession as a flaw that's holding her back. She would really be an incredible boon to any disaster relief effort, I'd be thrilled to see her doing that.
What did you think of explicit spoilers That's probably the most direct application of her super strength to save lives on a global stage, but it was extremely controversial among the reader base. Some implicit spoilers.
u/wren42 [+2] (3 days later)
thanks, it was a really fun read! I'm glad this post brought it to my attention.
Per max -- I agree that the act is reprehensible; I also agree it was correct from a utilitarian standpoint. Obviously, if there were a route to a non-violent solution, she should have taken that - finding a better way to convince him, incentivizing it in some way, etc.
however, for the purposes of the story, this was set up to be impossible. I was disappointed in the trajectory of Max's character arc in general. He was really turned into a strawman very quickly.
To be clear, I'm not much for libertarianism as a practical set of policies, but the ideals can certainly be made out as self consistent and commendable. For some reason the author felt the need to make him almost villainous and hateful. The sudden anger at being told what to do, the careless disregard for people, it was all just an unlikeable caricature and complete strawman.
I would have much preferred a slightly more generous execution of the same story, where Max argues for the values of personal freedom persuasively, instead of just acting like a dick for no reason. Genuine moral conflicts like this around personal terminal values or "axioms" are interesting.
Were I to write the story, I would have it such that his power to amplify others comes with a cost to himself, and show that he is unwilling to pay that cost at Al's behest. They could even still have some existing friction between them, though maybe less trivial and morally one-sided, where they had heatedly argued about personal responsibility and social good vs individual freedom, both coherently.
I think THAT would be a much more interesting conundrum. Max would have a point - he isn't obligated to help Feral, especially at cost to himself. But Al's decision would still be the best Utilitarian solution. Using force could even be said to be justified, given that it didn't just end Feral's self inflicted torture, but increased the total capacity to save many lives.
(though, I'm not sure the logistics work out on that, either. moving all those organs around the world coming out of a single facility operating just 40 hours a month would be a nighmare.)
Given that he had no reason not to comply, though, and it was costless to him, using force may be justified. She didn't need to physically HURT him, though. Kidnapping and just waiting in the sky till he gave in and agreed would probably have been enough.
I suspect the author doesn't have any sympathy or understanding for Max's position, though, which is why he wasn't written to be more compelling.
u/CeruleanTresses [+1] (3 days later)
I think the reason Max was written to be such an unbelievable jerk is because the scenario was supposed to be extreme--the question being, basically, "at what point does it become okay to twist this dude's arm? If he can save this many lives at essentially zero personal cost, and he won't do it, and the reason he won't do it is that he's a spiteful prick with a bootstrap where his empathy should be, then can you twist his arm? Why or why not?" They wanted to give Alison every possible reason to feel justified in her actions, and then show her conflicted and wracked with guilt anyway.
Basically, I think he was a dick with poorly conceived ideas because that arc was about utilitarianism vs deontology more than it was about autonomy vs. cooperation. But I agree that it was a missed opportunity. If they'd made him an unlikeable piece of human garbage without the emphasis on personal autonomy, they'd have left those libertarian ideals open for a more nuanced exploration later. I'd like to see the autonomy vs cooperation debate fleshed out in its own right, not just as a facet of the utilitarianism/deontology debate.
u/wren42 [+1] (3 days later)
Jerkiness has 0 bearing on whether force is acceptable. None at all. All these serve to do is provide emotional investment for the reader (or fail to) but it's never a reason to hurt someone. I agree the philosophy should have gotten better treatment.
u/CeruleanTresses [+1] (3 days later)
Well--that depends on the reader's perspective, right? I don't believe jerkiness has bearing on whether force is justified, and you don't, but there are perspectives from which his jerkiness would be relevant to that question. I think the idea was to cover all the possible avenues by which someone could justify harming him, and then say, "OK, in spite of all that, there's still a debate here".
But yeah, they unfortunately kind of threw his ideals in general under the bus by making him both the designated trolley problem villain and the mouthpiece for libertarianism. Their antagonists are usually a lot more nuanced. I'm no libertarian, but there are important conversations to be had about the value of personal autonomy and how it should be prioritized.
u/wren42 [+1] (3 days later)
if someone can justify harming him because he's a jerk, that's not utilitarianism. that's just punishing jerks. it's a completely different conversation. his actions weren't even really immoral, they were just presented as and signalled jerkness.
agreed on the rest.
u/CeruleanTresses [+1] (3 days later)
Sorry, I don't think I explained myself very well. I didn't mean to connect the jerk aspect with utilitarianism, but I see how it came off that way. I definitely don't think harming him for being a jerk is justifiable from a utilitarian perspective. What I meant to express is that by making him completely unsympathetic but not allowing that to close the debate, they highlight the philosophical dilemma in play. Like, if he'd been a really nice person it would b be more "obvious" for Alison to feel guilty, just because it feels bad to hurt nice people, but he's a complete asshole and she still feels guilty because she's questioning her principles.
I could be reading too much into it. I guess it's also possible that they just really don't like libertarians.
u/Sailor_Vulcan [+7] Champion of Justice and Reason (27 minutes later)
Short answer: yes. Long answer: check the sidebar.
u/None [+2] (13 hours later)
[deleted]
u/CeruleanTresses [+1] (a day later)
You mean the writer? Or the artist? What were they like?
u/GaBeRockKing [+3] Horizon Breach: http://archiveofourown.org/works/6785857 (55 minutes later)
Definitely rational fic, and potentially even rationalist, if her teatcher's lecture counts.
Unrelated, but I really want to see an postcanon worm/SFP crossover of some sort.
u/vallar57 [+2] Unseen University: Faculty of High-Energy Magic (13 hours later)
I think so, yeah. Granted, it's not a munchkinry fic, lots of things could have been done better, but I think it's very realistic, because you don't just go straight from superhero into a perfect social munchkin. She tries solving problems through intelligent application of their knowledge and resources, and that's what counts, even when she makes mistakes or outright fails.