" Most harassment happens in everyday interactions with people roughly on the same level "

i stated before that power imbalance is one factor in this issue... one as in one of several, i focused on this aspect because most of the cases we have been seeing have been with men in positions of power

" The realistic perspective here is that people pull off some stuff that should be prevented by common sense."

we wouldn't need laws and punishments if everyone abided by that kind of principle as i stated before

"Women are individuals like men"

we classify women as "women" because it is acknowledged that there are generalisations that can be made about them as a group... otherwise we couldn't ever make the classification

" Men with power get the most attention in these cases because they're well known but it doesn't mean harassment done by them makes up most of harassment overall"

that wasn't my argument, i'm not talking primarily about extremes here, but i would argue that women prefer a man that is at least at her level financially/socially and preferably above... and i do think that this drives a lot of the desire for success in men

"And I seriously hope you're not counting a woman as drawn to a man with power if that man is her boss, because most jobs have bosses, most people need a job, and thus women have a really hard time avoiding this kind of men with power, whether they want it or not."

that's one example yes... and as you alluded to here what can be done about that?

"You sound like a person who advocates common sense a lot, so why not now? Because it doesn't fit your agenda?"

believing that people could ever at all times behave in a way that aligns with "common sense" is not sensible... i've never claimed that i believe that people are entirely rational or could ever be entirely rational

that's to be honest one of the stupidest ideas i've ever heard and its usually derived from the idea that when we destroy religion completely everyone will be rational right away

and what is my agenda? 

"but when the institutions that perpetuate sexism are still in place"

the institutions? can you elaborate on this please?

"whether it's technically "legal" or not is not going to make much of a difference"

so what other measures would you propose?

" So then, you're one of those people that subscribes to that alpha and beta ideology that is honestly extremely questionable."

to what? i'm saying that women prefer men that are successful, are you really trying to deny this? lol

edit: i just looked up whatever that is that you posted there and if the idea is that some men are more attractive to women than others then yes i would agree... i mean isn't that obvious?

" And hierarchies eliminate individuality because it forces people to conform in order to be accepted into the workforce"

if i make my own business how am i conforming? lol

hierarchies are the direct result of individuality, i really don't see how anybody that understands what both mean could argue otherwise

"if people deviate too much from the expectations they are not going to last long"

which is a social problem not a problem resulting from individuality ( the opposite ) and that's why we all have the option of creating our own forms of employment

"My argument isn't that people shouldn't have to work, it's that they shouldn't have to sell their labour at their own expense to the enrichment of others."

again people do this when they do not create their own forms of employment of course if you work for someone else you have to conform to their rules

btw you could make this argument for society as a whole, why don't people walk around naked? why is sexual harassment a problem? why don't people steal constantly? its because to live in a society we have to suppress ourselves to work together

how can you argue against sexual harassment while at the same time denigrating the need of people to suppress a little of their individuality to work together? i mean you are literally arguing for two opposite ideas now

1. I don't have much love for focusing on minor problems when there are bigger problems to worry about. I don't mean we should ignore smaller problems either, but your priorities here seem to be off by quite a bit.

2. Should we just stop caring about it then?

3. I don't really agree this generalization is correct enough to warrant this wide generalization. Also, in the large scale, this is an irrelevant detail - like I said, most harassment happens in situations where power is either an irrelevant factor or it can't be ignored (i.e. the boss at work is the harasser).

4. I don't think it's a factor in the vast majority of harassment cases, so there should be no need to highlight it. Again, we can discuss it, but you make it sound like it's a really big factor in harassment when it's probably not.

5. Are you implying that women are drawn to their (male) bosses because they have power? As to what can be done about it, having this discussion is a good first step as it increases consciousness about the situation.

6. So what do you think makes people harass others?

7. This seems almost completely unrelated but anyway, I haven't heard anyone make the claim you just said - and neither have I ever suggested anything even remotely closely to that idea, here or elsewhere.

8. I don't know, but you do seem to want to defend harassment for some reason. You don't seem to think anything can, or maybe even should, be done about the situation. I can't help thinking that you have, for some reason, some understanding for harassers. Perhaps someone you know is a harasser, and it doesn't seem like such a bad thing to you? Of course this is all speculation, but you do seem keen on not really doing anything to change the situation.

"I don't have much love for focusing on minor problems when there are bigger problems to worry about."

many people are claiming that this is the main issue at the heart of all oppression and that we should therefore topple all hierarchies and lock everyone to one class, look around you with open eyes and you will see it for yourself

"Should we just stop caring about it then?"

as i said we do not live in a perfect world and humans are themselves imperfect, i think that ultimately we have to make strike a balance between security and freedom, if we try to make things too secure we end up with hell and if we allow too much freedom the same applies

my concern is that people are starting to hold very very naive ideas about these types of situations and are starting to veer towards the security side too much

a utopia where no suffering happens is not possible

"So what do you think makes people harass others?"

i think our behavior generally falls into two categories - altruistic and selfish

some times we lean more one way and sometimes we lean more the other way

i think harassment occurs when people lean more towards the selfish end of the motivational spectrum - putting their needs above those of their victims

i think that's one aspect but there are other factors

"Are you implying that women are drawn to their (male) bosses because they have power?"

that happens in some situations occasionally yes

"I don't know, but you do seem to want to defend harassment for some reason"

where have i said that harassment is justifiable?

i think murder is a serious problem, what can we do to end murder completely? i personally don't know of any way besides constant surveillance of everyone at all times, does this mean that i think murder is justifiable? what a silly argument

" You don't seem to think anything can, or maybe even should, be done about the situation."

can you propose a solution to the problem of people putting their needs above those of others? i can't myself and i think i understand people very well

what solutions do you have in mind for this problem in general? the education argument?

"Perhaps someone you know is a harasser"

i don't know anyone that is a harasser and i have never been accused of harassment personally

1. I haven't seen any of this. I have seen some people claim that harassment requires power to be involved, however. What you're saying sounds a lot like communism, and I rarely see that kind of stuff (and don't take any of it seriously because communism doesn't work in practice because it works so strongly against human nature).

2. Do you think fighting harassment is going against freedom them? That is what your answer seems to imply.

3. And this is clearly the wrong place for this argument. It's a valid argument, but if you use it this carelessly, you might as well apply it to everything. Why bother trying to change anything if suffering is going to happen anyway in the end? Why do you think we can't get rid of a significant amount of harassing?

4. I'd say this is correct, but do you think we should just accept it? There are many occasions where people would like to be selfish and act for their own benefit, but we've managed to largely eliminate the related problems.

5. Do you think such situations are in the majority, or are cases where women are not drawn to their bosses in the majority?

6. You haven't. However, you haven't given a single hint as to why we should fight harassment, instead only giving reasons why we shouldn't. Would you behave similarly if this discussion was about murder and murder was as common as harassment is, or would you have a stance that we must do something? Remember, murder and harassment are in a very different situation right now: there are relatively few murders in developed countries, whereas harassment is an extremely common issue.

7. Education, yes. Improving consciousness also helps, because people are more likely to put up a fight like we've already seen. As the issue gets more recognition, more people will learn to behave properly, more people learn to fight it properly, more organizations will start caring about it, and thus the situation improves as there are less harassers and less room for harassment. I don't think there's a quick remedy, but we should do whatever steps we can to get forward. This isn't a situation that's going to change even in a few years; I'm expecting the duration to be closer to a generation.

8. Good. Anyway, my point was what it seemed like to me because you've been quite unwilling to even try to do anything about the situation.

So... Do you think that any of these things are defendable?

Do you recall what they said to defend pedophilia?

That one not off the top of my head but 6 months ago I would've. The others though.. we had a thread where it asked if beastiality is ok and many were ok with it. Racism, check most political threads. Sexism, any thread involving rape. With rape, any thread about rape will have rape defenders. I don't know how to book mark but the rape thing was at least less than 2 months ago. Homocide, you'll see it defended when it comes to threads involving the topic which has come up. Nazism was recently heavily defended when the Charolletesville thread was made. Wellll, I can recall one instance of defending pedophilia off the top of my head but that was more of a implied offense rather than a direct one. Any direct ones have been few and far between thankfully

Including by you, unfortunately.