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Comment by at-fates-hands | Hacker News Reader

Which is the part that puzzles me. Successful guy, plenty of money. Get a high priced call girl, go on a sex site and get a woman who wants what you want. I mean I used to be in a band and it was easy to have a woman in nearly every city you could call when you feel lonely.

If he was after something deeper, hire a dating consultant and find something worthwhile.

It just amazes me that people who have both the means and ability to get what they want do foolish stuff like he's doing.

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> Get a high priced call girl, go on a sex site and get a woman who wants what you want. I mean I used to be in a band and it was easy to have a woman in nearly every city you could call when you feel lonely.

That's not the point. The point is precisely the power and coercion. Paying someone or finding someone like-minded doesn't hit that button anywhere near the same way that assault and blackmail does.

If you're strong-arming women into sex, it's not about the sex, it's about the strong-arming. The very inappropriateness itself is the goal.

Well put. "Everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power."

That sounds profound, but really it's just obscurantist (like most insightful but pithy proverbs, I might add).

People say this all the time, but is there any actual rigorous evidence or argument for it?

As far as I can tell it's just a way to demonize and dehumanize a group of really unpopular people in order to feel better about taking retribution against them. Comparable to saying, "She didn't murder her kids because of depression, but because she wanted them and her husband to suffer. The pain itself is the goal."

So is this really a rent-paying belief? Or is it rather a way to feel good about hating someone and absolve yourself from the responsibility to understand the internal experiences of people who do bad things?

This is important, by the way. If the goal is to feel good about hating people who did wrong, dehumanize away. If the goal is actually to prevent other people from doing wrong, you need understand accurately why the wrong was being done in the first place, and that's what I'm afraid isn't being done here.

I'm speaking from the perspective of someone who pays attention to the way good people are seduced into bad actions by the exercise of power beyond what's appropriate.

I do this precisely because I want to avoid situations where my behavior and viewpoint will be compromised by the level of authority I wield.

The very point I'm attempting to make, anyway, is that if you hand even the best humans inordinate power they will abuse it. That's how power is. It's not about the people - it's about the power structures we inhabit.

Reference the milgram experiment, the stanford prison experiment, whatever you like. They're not definitive, by any means, but they show you what is possible.

It is probably a great deal more complicated than that.

It's probably some mix of a lack of impulse control and enjoying the chase. He meets an attractive woman and pursues her, without stopping to think whether or not what he's doing is inappropriate or even assault.

Edit: I just finished reading the article. I hope this comment doesn't seem like I'm dismissing him as "Dave being Dave", because what he did was horrible. Plying her with copious amounts of alcohol and then backing her into a corner, refusing to leave her house. That's really messed up, like a frat boy's limited understanding of consent.

What I don't understand is why she kept drinking what he was pouring. (This is absolutely not a ”she was looking for it” remark... I'm just curious why in her initially sober state she had less incentive to avoid risk than when she was a little inebriated. His behaviour is absolutely nothing but despicable.)

Have you ever spent a lot of time around people you look up to and respect professionally and/or who are a bit famous? You get flustered and want to be liked and accepted. It's natural, and the burden is on the person in the more powerful position not to exploit that.

A long while ago I made the decision that I would never drink if I were not comfortable with the situation. Trying to impress somebody is a situation I am not comfortable with, so in this particular situation I would not drink. I consider this a sound policy (but then of course, of course I would, because it is my policy, so I'm biased).

That's nice in theory, but as long as sharing drinks with people is the world's most preeminent traditional method for socializing and turning casual acquaintances into close connections you're going to be necessarily swimming up stream with that policy.

It's not a theory, it's my practice. There's many cultures/religions where drinking is not allowed and somehow they manage to socialise too. I just say "thank you, but no thank you, I don't drink" and that's the end of it, the one time somebody was pushy I just remarked I'm on medication (little white lie there) and that was it.

Plus, incidentally, this is Malaysia... I lived in Malaysia for several years in the mid 2000s. There's a lot of heavy social drinking there but there's also a predominant Muslim culture (the Malays) who in theory should be barred from imbibing alcohol. As such, Malaysians are, in my experience, very adept at mixing in social situations where copious drinking is occurring while still allowing for some members that abstain from doing so on cultural grounds not to fell out of place.

It isn't impossible to do. It isn't even difficult to do. In fact it's an absolute non-issue.

Now, this is not terribly relevant in the present context (this was her house, I presume the alcohol was taken from her drinks cabinet, & cetera) but you should never allow anybody to pressure you into drinking because of social pressure. That somehow you seem to believe that the social situation begets the behaviour is a bit alarming.

Well yes. If you live in a Muslim country you may have a different perspective.

I think I expressed myself badly. I'm English/Italian and live in Italy. However I lived in Malaysia in the mid-2000s. These events took place in Malaysia. As I understand it the victim is a Malaysian national. Therefore I consider my experience of the place and culture to be somewhat relevant, or at the very least, evidence that other modes of behaviour are possible.

Because drinking a bit too much during a party is no big deal. Remember the part where she was surprised to find herself alone with Dave? That's when she suddenly realized what was going on.

(By the way: any analysis on how the victim of abuse made sub-optimal decisions is _always_ victim blaming, even if you add a disclaimer stating otherwise.)

> It just amazes me that people who have both the means and ability to get what they want do foolish stuff like he's doing.

"when you’re a star, they let you do it" - President Trump

People like him may be bored of using money as a means to get girls (no need to resort to prostitution for this even). Instead, they probably get off from methods like these.

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