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Comment by ShredKazoo | Hacker News Reader

She clarified "there are no unwanted advances".

Just because someone is uncomfortable does not mean there's something untoward going on. E.g. if I'm uncomfortable with two men kissing each other in public, it doesn't follow that those two men are creepy.

If you grow up with conservative parents, you may be socialized to believe that men kissing each other is creepy, when it is actually normal and healthy. Similarly, if you grow up on tumblr, you may be socialized to believe that men taking steps to meet women is creepy, when it is actually normal and healthy.

>Lots of creeps here in the comments too. Some might call a 22 year old pretending to be helpful to younger 17 year olds for their ulterior motives, "grooming".

You're pulling in a separate issue of someone being under the age of consent. Let's focus on one thing at a time.

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Not the same thing because of the power imbalance (older students, that teach labs) and obvious intent there is the threat of unwanted advances. I’d bet on even odds of actual abuse having occurred and it ends up being reported as less because who wants to go to court and face the next Epstein?

>Not the same thing because of the power imbalance (older students, that teach labs)

The average marriage involves a husband who is taller, older, and wealthier than his wife. Is that power imbalance problematic? Shall we pass a law that men cannot marry women who are shorter, younger, or poorer than they are?

>obvious intent there is the threat of unwanted advances

Not obvious to me. What incentive is there for coercion, even? Suppose I "threaten" with an unwanted advance in this circumstance -- what would I be getting in return?

The point of the prank is to meet your future wife. The best way to meet your future spouse is to find someone who's just as interested in you as you are in them.

>I’d bet on even odds of actual abuse having occurred and it ends up being reported as less because who wants to go to court and face the next Epstein?

"If we allow men and women in the same building, odds are good that abuse will occur at some point. All facilities need to be gender-segregated to prevent abuse."

It depends, I made a sister comment that say joining a yoga class or whatever is ok, but team leading a lab full of women to hit on them is not. Tutoring women to hit on them or even “see if I get lucky” is not. It is a conflict of interest clearly.

Even just having a bunch of guys in a class they have no intention of studying for or completing just to get lucky is clearly off.

Yes people meet each other in jobs and school etc. but usually by chance not engineered to this degree.

>Tutoring women to hit on them or even “see if I get lucky” is not. It is a conflict of interest clearly.

A "conflict of interest" arises when someone is incentivized to act in a way that conflicts with their professional responsibility. E.g. if a surgeon gets paid for a surgery even if the patient doesn't need it, that's a conflict of interest.

There is no professional responsibility for someone auditing a class.

>Even just having a bunch of guys in a class they have no intention of studying for or completing just to get lucky is clearly off.

If it results in an increase in students mastering the material, I'm not sure I see the problem.

>Yes people meet each other in jobs and school etc. but usually by chance not engineered to this degree.

The underlying message seems to be: "people can meet each other, but it has to be done in an inefficient and time-consuming way". Is that what you mean?

To save quoting, the corresponding replies are as follows:

1. I said tutoring not auditing.

2. What? Non sequitur?

3. People can meet each other: at bars, walking the dog, on dating sites, at Everest base camp, whatever. 99.9999% are ok.

Meeting by becoming the person leading the lab for women who need that lab to complete their education. Nope.

Are we talking here paid or unpaid tutoring? That should make pretty big difference, in paid case yes it is not okay. It is professional service offered for money. If it is unpaid? Why isn't that an okay motivation?

Maybe then we should ban unpaid tutoring and set some industry standard minimum rates for it. Just so we can avoid any unpaid labour.

Agreed about the strawmanning. (Ahem, “strawpersoning”?)

Seems to be a common rhetorical tactic to substitute untoward “downstream” effect with a system itself.

(“Because System X can be exploited for unwanted behavior Y, we need to condemn System X as much as we do behavior Y.”)

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