Questions you want answered (P&C Edition)

I didn't even think of the military applications of the freeway system. Obviously I need to play more strategy games that focus on supply lines.

It is amazing what you can afford when you aren't spending all of your money on department of war budgets and retirement benefits.

What. The. f*ck.

I... am actually at a loss, honestly. All I can say is that if I caught someone taking one of those pictures of my friends, I would introduce them to the floor with great force. Then politely request they delete the picture or have fun trying to send it after they ate the phone, bereft of condiments.

It is amazing what you can afford when you aren't spending all of your money on department of war budgets and retirement benefits.

To be fair, LeapingGnome, they've been taking money from people for fifty years to pay for those benefits. The only reason it's such a problem is because of the innumerable lies and fictions they've been spreading about what they were doing with that money. They weren't investing it, they were wasting it on hookers and blow.

Kannon wrote:

What. The. f*ck.

I... am actually at a loss, honestly. All I can say is that if I caught someone taking one of those pictures of my friends, I would introduce them to the floor with great force. Then politely request they delete the picture or have fun trying to send it after they ate the phone, bereft of condiments.

It is creepy, but at the same time if you don't want people to see you in tiny skirts, or short shorts, or low cut shirts then... don't wear them?

They were asking for it, huh?

SpacePPoliceman wrote:

They were asking for it, huh?

Beat me to it.

If you don't want to be photographed by total strangers, you shouldn't leave your house.

SixteenBlue wrote:
SpacePPoliceman wrote:

They were asking for it, huh?

Beat me to it.

If you don't want to be photographed by total strangers, you shouldn't leave your house.

And don't forget being perved on by one of the internet's largest, and creepiest communities.

Tanglebones wrote:
SixteenBlue wrote:
SpacePPoliceman wrote:

They were asking for it, huh?

Beat me to it.

If you don't want to be photographed by total strangers, you shouldn't leave your house.

And don't forget being perved on by one of the internet's largest, and creepiest communities.

Said with much more eloquence and candor than I could manage.

So, what question were you asking, here? Maybe that should be in one of the harassment-of-females threads instead?

Malor wrote:

So, what question were you asking, here? Maybe that should be in one of the harassment-of-females threads instead?

The question is WTF.

First, yes, WTF? actually meant as a question. I am fundamentally lacking in perspective here. (Not kidding, outside of GWJ, I know... maybe one or two guys, not counting my son. It has been this way for a remarkable length of time.) Why?! Is it a creepy fetish? Are these people _just_ massive f*cking assholes, or is there something else going on in addition to the weapons-grade stupid?

Second: That this is actually legal, and there's not much, if anything the people in question can do to fight this... How do people miss the sexism inherent in current society? Again, my experiences are probably nonstandard, but it seems... obvious.

Kannon wrote:

First, yes, WTF? actually meant as a question. I am fundamentally lacking in perspective here. (Not kidding, outside of GWJ, I know... maybe one or two guys, not counting my son. It has been this way for a remarkable length of time.) Why?! Is it a creepy fetish? Are these people _just_ massive f*cking assholes, or is there something else going on in addition to the weapons-grade stupid?

Second: That this is actually legal, and there's not much, if anything the people in question can do to fight this... How do people miss the sexism inherent in current society? Again, my experiences are probably nonstandard, but it seems... obvious.

I could have sworn this was declared illegal, at least in California.
http://www.ehow.com/facts_6877178_ca...

Tanglebones wrote:
SixteenBlue wrote:
SpacePPoliceman wrote:

They were asking for it, huh?

Beat me to it.

If you don't want to be photographed by total strangers, you shouldn't leave your house.

And don't forget being perved on by one of the internet's largest, and creepiest communities.

One with a history of digging up personal info with the slightest provocation, known for thinking rape is both high-lar-ious, and a valid way to express disagreement.

According to the Jezebel article, most laws that you'd think would make this illegal only apply to "naked or undergarment clad genitals, pubic area, buttocks, or female breast." So an upskirt picture would be illegal, but apparently a lot of the pictures are pg-13, so they are legal, just creepy as hell.

This story just happened a few days ago in Shanghai. The photo wasn't taken by a creeper though, well maybe the subway employee who decided it needed to be posted to the subway line's official Weibo (Chinese Twitter) account was. Sexual harassment is never okay of course, but the outfit does reveal a bit more than usual...

Kannon wrote:

First, yes, WTF? actually meant as a question. I am fundamentally lacking in perspective here. (Not kidding, outside of GWJ, I know... maybe one or two guys, not counting my son. It has been this way for a remarkable length of time.) Why?! Is it a creepy fetish? Are these people _just_ massive f*cking assholes, or is there something else going on in addition to the weapons-grade stupid?

Second: That this is actually legal, and there's not much, if anything the people in question can do to fight this... How do people miss the sexism inherent in current society? Again, my experiences are probably nonstandard, but it seems... obvious.

Yes, these people are just massive assholes. It's that simple.

Modern Western life doesn't provide enough of an obvious beatdown for assholery. So it continues.

Jonman wrote:

Modern Western life doesn't provide enough of an obvious beatdown for assholery. So it continues.

100% agree.

Offhand, I'd say it's a social test. The more fringe elements of the internet have come together to publicly share and try to validate where they perceive the line of acceptability lies. There are several mores being tested here:

1. Is it okay to photograph people without their consent in public?
2. Is it okay to look/photograph people from strange perspectives that they may not intend to show?
3. Is it okay to post said photographs in a public space and talk about them?

It seems to me that even though it seems as if they're being miscreants and stupid assholes, that they are nevertheless observing very strict guidelines on what is not acceptable, even in that space. I don't see any rape or even excessively young sexualized pictures; so while they may be crossing social boundaries of some of the population, they are themselves exhibiting a measure of social boundaries themselves. Whether this is due to an admin or self-selection, I'm not aware, since I don't visit reddit unless prompted. In this case, I perused the upskirt community at large to try to form an informed opinion about the content they share.

The upskirt phenomenon to me seems to be formed around the idea that the female body is forbidden fruit, and that secret glimpses or photos of it are enjoyable in being exotic experiences, and in being exciting clandestine activities. It is necessarily sexist in that it pertains to the female body in the specific.

I'm not aware that displaying my own genitals in public would entice anyone to take photos of them and/or take pleasure in seeing them regardless of my reasons for display. I have never seen anyone display secret or suppressed pleasure of accidental glimpses; the reaction has universally been abject horror.

For a throughly dispassionate look at the phenomenon, that post had one great punchline.

Kannon wrote:

First, yes, WTF? actually meant as a question. I am fundamentally lacking in perspective here. (Not kidding, outside of GWJ, I know... maybe one or two guys, not counting my son. It has been this way for a remarkable length of time.) Why?! Is it a creepy fetish? Are these people _just_ massive f*cking assholes, or is there something else going on in addition to the weapons-grade stupid?

Second: That this is actually legal, and there's not much, if anything the people in question can do to fight this... How do people miss the sexism inherent in current society? Again, my experiences are probably nonstandard, but it seems... obvious.

Meh. I looked at a few of the pictures. I think you might be over-reacting just a little bit.

What is it that makes these people "massive f*cking assholes"? That they perv on women? That they take pictures to show other people?

Note I don't really condone this and I think it's a bit tasteless but still, I find your indignation a little bit out of proportion.

jibboom wrote:
Kannon wrote:

First, yes, WTF? actually meant as a question. I am fundamentally lacking in perspective here. (Not kidding, outside of GWJ, I know... maybe one or two guys, not counting my son. It has been this way for a remarkable length of time.) Why?! Is it a creepy fetish? Are these people _just_ massive f*cking assholes, or is there something else going on in addition to the weapons-grade stupid?

Second: That this is actually legal, and there's not much, if anything the people in question can do to fight this... How do people miss the sexism inherent in current society? Again, my experiences are probably nonstandard, but it seems... obvious.

Meh. I looked at a few of the pictures. I think you might be over-reacting just a little bit.

What is it that makes these people "massive f*cking assholes"? That they perv on women? That they take pictures to show other people?

Note I don't really condone this and I think it's a bit tasteless but still, I find your indignation a little bit out of proportion.

I'd like to see your reaction if you caught someone taking a clandestine upskirt photo of your best friend. Especially if she was rather mortified at it. I will leave it to you to figure out exactly how rhetorical I am being.

Not rhetorical:

The other side of this interaction is the woman and her specific reaction at being mortified to be upskirted, as it were. Would there be a similar reaction if a man were wearing a kilt and he were upskirted? I don't know, and I would probably find that really, really creepy if it were done to me. I'd personally probably be predisposed to be violent if it happened enough times in general.

The direction of this conjecture is tying to suss out the entirety of the interaction and why it occurs that way.

LarryC wrote:

Not rhetorical:

The other side of this interaction is the woman and her specific reaction at being mortified to be upskirted, as it were. Would there be a similar reaction is a man were wearing a kilt and he were upskirted? I don't know, and I would probably find that really, really creepy if it were done to me. I'd personally probably be predisposed to be violent if it happened enough times in general.

Let alone if it happened, was posted online in a community of people who gawked at your upkilt, and potentially tried to find your information and sexually harass you as a result of it.

Is this as big of a deal as they are making it out to be?

Yep, they're basically right. This is exactly what I've been screaming about for the last twelve years -- that we're NOT SOLVING ANYTHING, that we're deploying trillions of dollars to keep a Ponzi scheme going, that the system is utterly rotten.

This involves the Federal Reserve very deeply. They're in this up to their eyebrows. This would all have blown up more than a decade ago if they hadn't been so busily propping up their corrupt buddies.

Make no mistake, fixing this is going to crash the economy. But failing to fix it will crash the economy even worse.

Not a question, just a random thing I wanted to post:

Today is the 120th anniversary of the Battle of Homestead.

Kannon wrote:

I'd like to see your reaction if you caught someone taking a clandestine upskirt photo of your best friend. Especially if she was rather mortified at it. I will leave it to you to figure out exactly how rhetorical I am being.

I was confused, because the Jezebel article mentioned that upskirts was already its own established forum. The article made it sound like these were photos taken of women in public while they were... basically, doing nothing, just being in public. Several have been deleted. There was one upskirt they linked. It seems like that one would fall under the voyeurism laws that Jezebel mentioned, though it wasn't like the camera was stuck on the end of a walking cane. It was a combination of the shortness of her dress and the way she was sitting.

To me, the forum is baffling. Most are just pictures of women dressing normally and doing normal things.

When you're out in public, people can see you. Even the jerks and creeps.

How can someone make the argument that the US Government is attacking Christianity and suppressing Christians freedom to worship... and believe it?

Kehama wrote:

How can someone make the argument that the US Government is attacking Christianity and suppressing Christians freedom to worship... and believe it?

By not actually thinking about what they are saying.