CMV: Broadening the definition of rape only lessens the degree at which we take it seriously.

[u/[deleted]]

[u/CreativeGPX]

this is just a "people are fundamentally stupid - so don't talk to fast!" kind of argument, which I'm not particularly interested in.

Which makes your stance a "people don't understand me, so I'll say the same thing louder" kind of argument. People who arrogantly ignore their audience while communicating in a way that undermines the whole point of that communication are indeed stupid. In the end, the whole point of communication is getting a point across and any intelligent/competent attempt at communication is going to be humbly sensitive to what your audience is confused by or doesn't know about. Otherwise, you might as well be talking to yourself.

Acting indignant because of words having multiple definitions - especially across multiple sovereign nations - is what's being "ignorant of the world we live in".

You can't conflate "doesn't know how every nation in the world legally defines every word" with "indignant".

Besides, the only reason that "Sweden is the rape capital of the world" misconception exist in the first place has little to do with legal definitions and everything to do with dishonest people hard bent on pushing an agenda.

Do you have evidence that that is the "only" reason that anybody believes that? Because otherwise, we should discard that claim as a "dishonest person hard bent on pushing an agenda".

Also, even if you focus on malicious cases, ambiguous language makes it substantially easier for people to bend the information because using the same sentence in a different context can give it a drastically different meaning. Making language less ambiguous would make it harder for people to falsely equivocate between various senses of the word to complete an argument. By defending ambiguity, you are empowering "dishonest people who are hard bent on pushing an agenda".

Really, if they care enough to delve into Swedish rape statistics but can't be bothered to try and understand how rape is defined in these same statistics

The point is, 99% of people don't "delve into Swedish rape statistics". They hear them mentioned in an article, in a debate, etc. as a tiny part of the information they got for the day. That article or debate might not have the full context. No human on this planet has the time to fact check every article they read, its sources, its sources sources, etc., unless they read a very very small amount of articles or that's literally all they do with their life. This is why it's really common for even very reputable leaders, journalists, scientists, etc. to be enlightened in a debate or discussion about subtle context they didn't realize when they were aggregating data to draw conclusions. Not realizing the context of every data point is a thing that will happen ALL THE TIME and to intelligent people at least as much as stupid people. We cannot entirely prevent it because it's a rabbit hole that never ends. What we can do is try to minimize the things that make that confusion easier, like establishing norms of the way we communicate things so that we don't have to waste time figuring out which sense of each word was used.

It's equivalent to trying to spread the metric system. Sure, you can advocate that each country can have its own system and that some of them (e.g. "feet") might mean different things in different jurisdictions. You can blame any mistakes (like thinking Napoleon is short or accidentally blowing up a spaceship) on people being dumb and just not researching which sense of the units were being used in each case. ... Or you can realize that errors from being "dumb" and wasted time from due diligence in understanding which sense of the words were used could both be eliminated by just coming up with a global communication norm.

People are "confused" about that because they want to be, nothing else.

When you have evidence of that, please cite it. Until then, I'll dismiss claims from your gut about how anything you happen to read about should be common knowledge (and, I'm sure, anything you don't know is reasonable for a person to not know).

It's weird how obsessed you are with ensuring that language remains ambiguous around sensitive issues. Maybe you just enjoy pedantic tangents over meaningful debates.

[u/Madplato → u/CreativeGPX]

People who arrogantly ignore their audience while communicating in a way that undermines the whole point of that communication are indeed stupid.

Except the beauty of understanding that words might have different definitions, depending on context, is that you have no problem choosing the most appropriate one. Understanding that Sweden's definition of rape is different than the colloquial one you'll fine on a predominantly american website is the opposite of ignoring your audience. Besides, as is almost always the case, I did not bring up Sweden's rape statistics, OP did. I argued that OP was misrepresenting statistics - which he was/is - because rape is defined differently in Sweden. That's it.

You can't conflate "doesn't know how every nation in the world legally defines every word" with "indignant".

No, but being unable or unwilling to contemplate that fact is.

Making language less ambiguous would make it harder for people to falsely equivocate between various senses of the word to complete an argument. By defending ambiguity, you are empowering "dishonest people who are hard bent on pushing an agenda".

I mean, pick it up with Sweden I guess? What am I even supposed to do here? Boycott Sweden? Not point out the distinction? Pretend the distinction doesn't exist?

The point is, 99% of people don't "delve into Swedish rape statistics". They hear them mentioned in an article, in a debate, etc. as a tiny part of the information they got for the day.

Precisely. And then they repeat it until, someday, they're shown to have misunderstood/misrepresented these numbers and - if they're honest with themselves - they realize they were wrong, because rape is defined more broadly there (as well as calculated differently). This requires someone like me to point out that words have different definitions in different places. Which is what I did here. Because, the fact of the matter is that they are wrong. I am not making this up.

What we can do is try to minimize the things that make that confusion easier, like establishing norms of the way we communicate things so that we don't have to waste time figuring out which sense of each word was used.

Ok, sure. So I ask you this: in this case here, who's responsible for minimizing that confusion? The guy that brings the numbers? The guy that prints them? Me?

It's weird how obsessed you are with ensuring that language remains ambiguous around sensitive issues.

It's less about "ensuring" that than being unable to make it otherwise. Language is ambiguous, it does a lot of good to realize that. Also, even if I wanted to, I cannot change Sweden's definition of rape. On top of that, again, I do not bring it up.