Re: The Bigger, Badder, Even More Serious Thread

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ This VRChat- I don't know if it was this exact one, but chances are it was or very similar to it, it's popular, it's got lots of people, it has a bad reputation for trolling and stuff, so it fits. But this is the circumstances in which this girl says she was 'gang raped'.



As you can see it's chaotic, people move about all over the place as it tries to track peoples movements and as internet connections come and go etc. The VR tech of now is simply not sophisticated or good enough for more than this. And it's most certainly not anywhere near the level of realism or experience to allow for 'rape' to occur in such circumstances. }}

[Mrs Figg]

I think the point is here that they are dealing with an emotionally immature child who has become so psychologically imbedded into this avatar that she feels an intense connection with it. An adult would be immediately able to understand the difference between reality and unreality, but a kid who has grown up on this stuff, maybe not, especially if she is on the autism spectrum. Also, if she thinks she 'knows' and trusts these other avatars and they suddenly gang up on her and abuse her, I reckon she would feel it's a betrayal, even though it's not. It certainly is a weird one. But on the other hand, if the 'rapist' avatars are also young children, it's very worrying.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ The point here is in order to do this they have to prosecute people for rape. In a VR body.
According to English law rape is defined by the law as-

   (1) A person (A) commits an offence if—

       (a) he intentionally penetrates the vagina, anus or mouth of another person (B) with his penis,
       (b) B does not consent to the penetration, and
       (c) A does not reasonably believe that B consents.

   (2) Whether a belief is reasonable is to be determined having regard to all the circumstances, including any steps A has taken to ascertain whether B consents.
   (3) Sections 75 and 76 apply to an offence under this section.

   (4) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable, on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for life.


Not a single word of the law applies here. You cannot physically penetrate someone anywhere through a VR headset- this is impossible.
The law of rape simply does not, and cannot apply here.
I'm not saying when nasty abusive trolling happens it shouldn't be dealt with, of course it should, but you cannot use the rape laws in this circumstances or equate it to actual rape. It's ridiculous.
Worse if the police get their way then the 3 or more people who she is accusing of 'gang rape' would ed up convicted the same as if they had actually gone down a dark alleyway in reality and actually physically assaulted and raped a woman for real. And that's madness too. That's like locking someone up for murder if they post to someone "I want to kill you" it's a threat, it's not pleasant but it's not the same as actually murdering someone either. It's no different in VR, all there is are voices as people speak like you're on discord or something, and fairly poor quality graphics representing things.

The girl in question is 16. You should know the difference between looking at something on a screen that is literally strapped to your face in a chunky impossible to forget headset, and reality by 16. And she can't have grown up with it, VR tech isn't old enough yet for anyone to have grown up with. And if she has mental health issues that mean she cannot tell fiction and reality apart, then whoever her guardians are should not be letting her go into VR chat rooms unsupervised, or any VR. I can't think of a worse thing to give someone who can't tell fiction from reality apart than a VR headset! }}

[Mrs Figg]

I agree with you about the law, obviously it's not actual rape, and it is absurd for the police to say that it is. The police need to have words with her parents and take the VR away.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ I wouldn't take her headset away or ban her from VR unless she really does have mental health issues that would make that a wise decision - otherwise it's too close to punishing the victim. The trolls need dealt with, no one should feel so uncomfortable they can't use their VR. But that's a moderating issue for the sites hosts, and it's there the police should direct their attention. It's just bizarre to me the police are classing it as rape. }}

[Mrs Figg]

Well, the police are not really the police any more are they. Either they are 'lesbian nannas' or standing by while Eritreans beat each other to death with sticks on British streets.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ Well it's certainly different than when they bust through my front door some 30 years ago, first thing they did was give me a kicking. And I wasn't even guilty of anything they just trashed my house, smashed everything up, threw it all over the floor, ripped my furniture up, and then walked back out as there was nothing to charge me with. The kicking was just a freebie! Not sure it was better!}}

[Mrs Figg]

crikey what was that in aid of?

[halfwise]

Must have sided with the wrong football team.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ Well it was unwarranted, but also in a way, sort of not.
You see back then, between about 19-24 I was on a bit of an exploration of, well life, the universe and everything. And that exploration took the form of psychedelics- magic mushrooms which we could pick locally in season, acid tabs and blotters when we couldn't, and dope smoking was just a general background thing, and drinking, well we'd been doing that since 14, it in the end was the worst of them all.
And with the arrogance of youth we didn't even try to hide it, in fact quite the opposite, we were so sure our world view was right and officialdoms so wrong we flaunted it.
For example one of the places we went for acid was being watched by two coppers in an unmarked car, but one of them had left their coppers hat partly uncovered on the backseat and it got spotted, so word quickly went round they were there. So what did we do? We went there and strolled about by the car giving them cheery waves and thumbs up, we taunted them on the skill of their camouflage.
And then there was my flat. It was the hub, on any given day they'd be 2-10 people there or coming and going and often late into the night too- I had a flat when others didn't, I had games consoles, a big tv, a stocked fridge and was never short of drink to be generous with or a smoke.
But somewhere down the line I made an enemy of someone (to this day still don't know who) and they tipped off the police, but they told them I was a dealer and I was also growing plants. Neither of which I have ever done.
That in itself would not be enough for a warrant but once they started spying and saw folk coming and going all the time it probably looked like I was.
As it is I can't even grow a tomato plant, I'm terrible at keeping plants alive, I'm the kid whose cress died.

So one winters night I'm having a rare night, I'm on my own. Even rarer, my dealer had run out of smoke, so all I had of that was some skinned down joint stubs mixed into my tobacco tin. I was watching TV, sitting on the couch with my legs stretched out on the coffee table in front of me, and that's when they came through my front door.
It's amazingly fast, just a huge bang as the ram smashes through your door, then in seconds my living room seemed full of coppers (there were 6 of them and 1 CID- he came in behind the rest) I was still sitting in stunned shock at this point and as he entered the room he said "As of this moment this flat is ours," then he approached me adding, "you don't so much as put your f**king feet up without my permission." At which point he gave me a proper boot to the legs, a proper full on full power kick, sending the coffee table flying and leaving me with a cracker of a bruise later before shoving me in the face and down against the couch.
At this point they started searching the flat.
As it was quickly apparent to them I was in fact growing nothing at all, rather than let it deter them they decided some revenge was in order for me not in fact being a criminal and wasting police time by being innocent (currently at least!). So on the pretence of looking for 'seeds' for plants they started pulling out every kitchen drawer and cupboard tipping the contents onto the floor, they did the same with every box and container they could find in the flat. And when that too provided them with nothing they started tipping my living room furniture over, the couch and armchairs, and taking a knife to them sliced the bottoms off to check inside.
I had by that point in proceedings recovered my wits, but apparently not my brains enough, to have begun making snarky comments like 'you won't find many plants under there', and 'maybe you should have brought a botantist' ( I didn't say they were good taunts, but it was working under pressure).
But it was covering the stress, and I was feeling that and as happens in such circumstances my mind turned to needing a cigarette to calm myself, so I said to the two cops with me at the time, 'look can I make a rollie' and indicated my baccy tin, they nodded and I reached for it. It was in that moment I remembered that I had skinned down the joint stubs into the baccy, baccy I was now going to have to roll and smoke in front of the police, and if any of the joint remains got into the rollie I was making it'd be instantly smellable. On the other hand if I suddenly put the tin back down and didn't make a rollie, it would be very suspicious. So doing my best to look like I was rolling naturally, whilst actually trying to spot tiny bits of dope dispersed among the baccy I rolled a smoke, and then finally I lit it.
Longest roll up of my life, and I  only smoked as much of it as I thought would look credible before stubbing it out.

And so, having thrown everything from cupboards and drawers onto the floors, turned all my furniture upside down and cut it apart, and not forgetting smashed in my front door and broken the lock, and giving me a booting, they said 'right that's us' and walked out the door and left me standing there with a sore leg surveying the ruin of my flat that not half an hour had been perfectly calm and fine.

After that they targeted me every time I went out for about a year, I couldn't walk to a friend's house without getting stopped and searched at least twice, once there once on way back, sometimes more than once on a single trip.

Though when it comes to being searched they did try to get me again, about 1 month after the flat incident. I had finished work, back then I was 'checker' at what is now Hunters Quay Holiday Village, but back then was part of the Hafton House Estate, they rented out lodges, and hired cleaners to clean them and people like me to check the work and make sure it was all up to spec. I had come into town, the main street of town, and gone to the main newsagent on it, this was a bust Saturday afternoon. I bought a computer game magazine walked out the shop and a police car, lights, siren the work screeched up, parked sideways in the road blocking it and making traffic build up, leapt out, grabbed me and slammed me up against the shop wall whilst cuffing me and arrested me under the Misuse of Drugs Act, seemingly believing me to be in possession of drugs, I wasn't, but that was pure chance really, another day I may well have had.
I got bundled into the car (and this being a small town before I'd been put in the car news had reached my parents already that I'd been very publicly arrested in front of the whole town) and driven to the police station - where stage two of their revenge was to take place. This was the strip search, the attempt was to humiliate me. They did it in a room with no door that opened onto the secretaries in the office and in fact anyone who came to the front desk at the right angle, in the hope of causing me immense embarrassment. It didn't work I just proudly pulled everything off as required with a cheery smile and a wave to the lasses ( I played hours of football back then and had done a very physical job in a garage every day after school and weekends from 14 onwards, I did not feel I had anything to be less than proud of back then, I as pretty solidly built), so I bent over for the inspection with the words, "Knock yourself out. I'm not the one who has to stare up a strangers arse."

As you can imagine, I am not the greatest fan of the police. Though my favourite encounter with them, and I swear this is true, a friend and I had gone out at about 2.30am  on a clear night to stargaze as there was supposed to be a meteor shower. Up a dark lane leading onto the hills, to get away from as much light pollution as possible a police van spotted us and stopped us for questioning, it went like this-

policeman- can you tell us where you're going?
Me- Just up onto the hillside there.
policeman- At half two in the morning? What for?
Me- We're going star gazing and to see if we can spot any meteors that are supposed to be going over tonight.
policeman- and you have to do that at night do you?

It's the only time in my life I have been genuinely so flabbergasted by the stupidity of a question I've been totally stumped for an answer, I just stared at him with my mouth silently opening an dclosing as tried to think what to say in reply to that, and everything I thought of amounted to, 'you're a f**king idiot'.

Fortunately, my mate has a more diplomatic and less crabbit mindset than me and managed to get out "Well stars are easier to see in the dark."

Such is growing up with bored small town police forces. }}

[Pettytyrant101]

Must have sided with the wrong football team.- Halfy

{{ I was OK there. This town is, but much less than it once was, a masonic, protestant, Glasgow Rangers supporting town. And my family were credited fully paid up members of masons, orange lodges, helped run the local Supporters Club, indulged in pope hating and if they could have got away with it probably catholic burning too. Naturally therefore it made us a well respected and liked family, as that was the approved mindset (and I do mean approved, such thinking people ran the police, were the judges and the councillors and everything else important to the running of the town).

Though remind me if you want to hear it of the rangers Supporters Club Dance, attended by Ally McCoist and Ian Durrant, including sex with maids, sectarian singing, and the utter hypocrisy of the towns elites (it's amazing what you see when you are doing the doors- and yes I too back then had to be an accredited bigot to get that gig. I was in my late teens before it seriously started occurring to me that something was very wrong with attitudes in this part of the world! Funny what can seem perfectly normal if you grow up with it all around you.).}}

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ Things are improving here, I mean look at this, and no one even stabbed him! (strong language warning, well every day language if you live here) }}

[Mrs Figg]

I think those policemen must have been watching too much Taggart and fancied themselves hard men.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ The real nasty ones were the old Strathclyde police force, you did not want to screw with them, especially in Glasgow. Glasgow of the 70's and 80' was terrible for razor gangs and football related violence. Effectively the police got a grip on the situation by becoming the worst gang in the city.
When I was staying there the guy I got my smoke and trips off was also selling lots of other stuff, he wasn't big time but he was middle of the table, big enough for attention, his weed arrived by the black back full, parties at his place included bowls of nibbles, crisps and cocaine, that sort of thing.
Police had been after him for a while, but they kept screwing it up, getting their timing wrong or just being unlucky, and they could never catch him with anything. Finally after about their 4th attempt to bust him and failing they drove him out to the old scrap ground on Clyde side across from the SECC, stripped him to the waist and holding him out the car pressed his shoulder to the ground as they drove round.
I saw him in the hospital about 3 days later, it had taken the skin clean off him.
When people wonder how Glasgow went from one of the worst places in the country for casual violence, gangs and crime to its current moniker as 'Scotland's Friendliest City' it's because the police basically went Dirty Harry. But they were hard bastards in how they did it.}}

[Mrs Figg]

We need guys like that now, but they have gone soft. Employing short fat women and skinny short lads instead of bruisers.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ Anyone still left in any doubt that Israel's war is one of genocide, mass relocation of a people, the theft f their land and homes and the expansion of Israel by military means, need look no further than the words of the Israeli Finance Minister-

“I welcome the initiative of members of Knesset Ram Ben-Barak and Danny Danon on the voluntary immigration of Gaza Arabs to the countries of the world....The state of Israel will no longer be able to put up with the existence of an independent entity in Gaza,” he added.

They aren't even tying to hide it any more, the aim of this war from the very start has been the massacre of many Palestinians as possible, the complete reduction of the entirety of the Gaza strip- homes, hospitals, refugee camps all of it, too rubble, to starve out and force the remaining surviving Palestinians into Egypt and the Sinai, and for Israel to colonise the Gaza Strip and rebuild it for themselves.

And all of this is against international law and classed as crimes against humanity. And yet still we continue to back it and fund it happening. }}

[Mrs Figg]

If I had Hamas and mad Islamists living next door, I might feel the same way. It's about survival. it's funny but you never ever hear of Jews charging at people with machetes and chopping up babies or calling for the death of entire races and the West. After a certain point of 200 years of hate people have just had enough. Not saying that the state of Israel is great, it's not, it's a colonial force full of people stealing Palestinian land, and I really despise the arrogance of the settlers, but if I have to choose, I am on the side of Jewish people.

[Pettytyrant101]

but you never ever hear of Jews charging at people with machetes and chopping up babies or calling for the death of entire races and the West. - Figg

{{ No you don't, because they have a fully funded state, with an army and infinite weaponry supplied by the US, they don't have to. They aren't living behind a wall controlled by another nation, they don't have their every movement controlled. When people have nothing they will fight with whatever comes to hand.
Hamas have glorified fireworks for missiles, and machettes for weapons, Israel has everything up to nukes.

And of course Israel doesn't have to chop up babies - not when they have been blowing the limbs from them in their thousands, burning their small bodies to a crisp, crushing the air and bones from them beneath the rubble of their own homes, or even the rubble of the hospital where they should be safe.
There is no justification for the mass massacre of innocents, for indiscriminate murder on a such a scale. This is not Israel calling for the death of another nation, it's Israel causing it. This is genocide Figg. I can't believe you support that. }}

[Mrs Figg]

Who said I supported it? Israel is not a rogue state like Syria, and Netanyahu, not matter how horrible he is, is not Assad, nowhere near. Syria murdered its own people, Iran murders its own people, most Islamist countries are murdering their own people in the millions. Israel does not murder its own people; it protects them from the surrounding Islamists who hate them with a deep ancestral bloody purpose. In every prayer muslims from every country on earth call for the death and destruction of Jews. How can you not become full of revenge in the face of that?

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ Thats an incredibly broadstroke approach to Islam and its followers. There are extremists in Israel on the Jewish side calling for the deaths of Palestinians, government ministers saying there are "no civilians as there are no innocent Palestinians"- there are extremist Christians, hell Christianity has done a lot of very extreme horrendous things in its name. In no case other than when it comes to Muslims do we assume they are all the same and thats all there is to their religion.
Islam lived in peace with many other religions for centuries. It can again, the problem is extremism on all sides.
And that extremism is not an accident, its deliberate. The modern version of extreme Islam began with our, apparent friends, Saudi Arabia, fostered by the then King and Crown Prince as a means to suppress their enemies (every 9/11 bomber was Saudi). But it got out of control, it spread to other parts, like Syria, Afghanistan and Iran. They lost control over it.
In Palestinian the possibility for peace was there with the PLO, but it was Israel who deliberately undermined them and secretly funded and aided their rivals, Hamas, to control the Gaza strip - divide and conquer, Israel reasoned if the Palestinians were not united, but ruled by rival factions that hated each other then there would never be peace and no two-state solution-Israel could stick to its plan of the slow eradication and displacement of Palestinians through illegal Settlements. Extremist Jewish violence by illegal Settlers on Palestinians in their own homes was common before this war, and given a silent nod by the Israeli government and a blind eye by the US.
All Hamas did was provide the excuse for Israel to forgo the slow Settlement plan and just massacre the Palestinians and drive the remnants from their land instead. It's pure evil, always has been. }}

[Mrs Figg]

How do you explain the assignation of the Israeli prime minister Yitkhac Rabin during the Oslo peace talks?

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ What when another Israeli assassinated him? He was taken out by his own people who opposed him making a peace offer to Palestinians.
All that tells you how strongly Israeli jews and the religious class feel about not making peace with Palestinians and not allowing them the land they live on as their home. They were willing to murder their own just for talking peace with Palestine. }}

[Mrs Figg]

Not 'they', one person.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ The Israeli government didn't exactly pick up where he had left off either, did they? No, they went the entire other way with Netanyahu, illegal Settlement expansion, sowing discord among the Palestinians by secretly helping Hamas and undermining the PLO, building walls to herd the Palestinians behind and so much more. }}

[Mrs Figg]

The point is, you are painting them as an evil empire, and I am saying it's more nuanced than that.