# Shoshana Roberts, a street walker (10 hours,) films herself being "harassed." **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 29, 2014, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoshana-roberts-a-street-walker-10-hours-films-herself-being-harassed/702930 "2014-10-29T20:25:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 31
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2014, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoshana-roberts-a-street-walker-10-hours-films-herself-being-harassed/702930/601 "2014-11-03T00:42:33Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > The parodies are also a stupid argument. For him to eschew participation in a stupid argument by returning to parodies is thus a very short journey. What’s the problem with the parody argument in your view? ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2014, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoshana-roberts-a-street-walker-10-hours-films-herself-being-harassed/702930/602 "2014-11-03T03:16:08Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > The parodies are also a stupid argument. For him to eschew participation in a stupid argument by returning to parodies is thus a very short journey. The parodies were well constructed and sharp, in that they mirrored, quite intentionally, the stupidity of the parodied argument. But the main difference between the parody and the stupid argument is in fact the ingenuity of the posters. Something I suspect is quite opaque to you. ---
**Author:** ![BrightNShiny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@BrightNShiny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrightNShiny)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2014, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoshana-roberts-a-street-walker-10-hours-films-herself-being-harassed/702930/603 "2014-11-03T03:29:26Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > The parodies are also a stupid argument. For him to eschew participation in a stupid argument by returning to parodies is thus a very short journey. Uh-huh, riiiiight. I made fun of people lecturing us about complex topics that they clearly have never studied, and sure enough, **Stringbean** shows up to drop some evolution “knowledge” on us, when it’s clear he doesn’t understand the topic. I don’t claim to be some evolutionary expert (after all, it’s a complex topic that people spend their entire careers studying), but the evolutionary arguments in this thread are so painfully stupid that anyone with even a cursory knowledge can see that people like **Stringbean** simply do not know what they are talking about. And if you look at the racial evolution thread I linked to, he does the exact same thing there. Except in that thread, there were actually people with expertise refuting his arguments, and his response was to make fun of their formal education. There is simply no reasoning with people who behave this way. Not only are they ignorant, they are committed to that ignorance. And if their premises are rooted in ignorance, there’s not point in trying to deal with their conclusions. You’re just mad because I managed to squeeze on of your arguments into my parodies. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2014, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoshana-roberts-a-street-walker-10-hours-films-herself-being-harassed/702930/604 "2014-11-03T03:58:26Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > What’s the problem with the parody argument in your view? They consist of strawman positions, and cannot be meaningfully rebutted because the parody author can simply hide behind the parody shield instead of being accountable for clearly ascribing the strawman argument to opponents. ---
**Author:** ![BrightNShiny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@BrightNShiny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrightNShiny)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2014, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoshana-roberts-a-street-walker-10-hours-films-herself-being-harassed/702930/605 "2014-11-03T04:07:48Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > They consist of strawman positions, and cannot be meaningfully rebutted because the parody author can simply hide behind the parody shield instead of being accountable for clearly ascribing the strawman argument to opponents. No, they aren’t strawmen. Every argument I made in the parody was made by other posters in this thread, and sometimes the argument was made multiple times. It’s clear many posters here understood exactly what I was doing. You’re just making yourself look silly. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2014, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoshana-roberts-a-street-walker-10-hours-films-herself-being-harassed/702930/606 "2014-11-03T11:29:09Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > They consist of strawman positions, I’m not seeing it. The parodies are constructed practically word-for-word, certainly thought-for-thought, in a way designed to mirror the logic of the arguments being parodied. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2014, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoshana-roberts-a-street-walker-10-hours-films-herself-being-harassed/702930/607 "2014-11-03T13:58:55Z")
> [@BrightNShiny](#): > > No, they aren’t strawmen. Every argument I made in the parody was made by other posters in this thread, and sometimes the argument was made multiple times. It’s clear many posters here understood exactly what I was doing. You’re just making yourself look silly. I don’t agree. The problem with argument by analogy can be that since the analogized position is not identical to the actual position, it may suffer from a nuance that the original position does not. In this case, your attempt to analogize offering candy to children to offering comments to women suffers from precisely that flaw. The very subject under debate is: to what extent an unrequested greeting suffers from social opprobrium. To argue that engaging a woman on the street is analogous to offering candy to children from a car is obviously advantageous to your position, because the concept of a stranger offering candy to children is nearly universally acknowledged as undesirable behavior. But it’s not a valid analogy in this instance, because it suffers from the [fallacy of “begging the question:”](http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/begging-the-question.html) it assumes the truth of that which it sets out to prove. Because it’s a parody, moreover, it insulates you from direct criticism because the parody conceals the weakness of the analogy. For example, are you saying society should regard women as children? After all, your analogy directly places women in the position of the child being offered candy. We recoil from the image of the stranger offering candy to kids because we picture the kids being unable to resist the lure of the candy and making themselves vulnerable to abduction as a result. As a society, we accept that children deserve heightened protection because of their inability to rationally assess their surroundings and our willingness to deny them autonomy because we understand their comparative lack of judgement and life experience. Is that also your argument with respect to women? Of course not (I assume), but the parody framework makes it difficult to nail down just which aspects of your analogy you intend to be relevant. You may believe your parody presented an unerring and unambiguous rebuttal, but this is true only if you assume the truth of the conclusions you set out to prove. That’s no doubt comforting, but it’s poor argument. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2014, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoshana-roberts-a-street-walker-10-hours-films-herself-being-harassed/702930/608 "2014-11-03T14:02:53Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I don’t agree. > > The problem with argument by analogy can be that since the analogized position is not identical to the actual position, it may suffer from a nuance that the original position does not. > > In this case, your attempt to analogize offering candy to children to offering comments to women suffers from precisely that flaw. > > The very subject under debate is: to what extent an unrequested greeting suffers from social opprobrium. To argue that engaging a woman on the street is analogous to offering candy to children from a car is obviously advantageous to your position, because the concept of a stranger offering candy to children is nearly universally acknowledged as undesirable behavior. > > But it’s not a valid analogy in this instance, because it suffers from the [fallacy of “begging the question:”](http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/begging-the-question.html) it assumes the truth of that which it sets out to prove. > > Because it’s a parody, moreover, it insulates you from direct criticism because the parody conceals the weakness of the analogy. For example, are you saying society should regard women as children? After all, your analogy directly places women in the position of the child being offered candy. We recoil from the image of the stranger offering candy to kids because we picture the kids being unable to resist the lure of the candy and making themselves vulnerable to abduction as a result. As a society, we accept that children deserve heightened protection because of their inability to rationally assess their surroundings and our willingness to deny them autonomy because we understand their comparative lack of judgement and life experience. > > Is that also your argument with respect to women? Of course not (I assume), but the parody framework makes it difficult to nail down just which aspects of your analogy you intend to be relevant. > > You may believe your parody presented an unerring and unambiguous rebuttal, but this is true only if you assume the truth of the conclusions you set out to prove. That’s no doubt comforting, but it’s poor argument. try looking up the word sarcasm, that definition applies to BrightNShiny now look up obstinate, that definition applies you you and is the source of said sarcasm ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2014, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoshana-roberts-a-street-walker-10-hours-films-herself-being-harassed/702930/609 "2014-11-03T14:07:06Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > try looking up the word sarcasm, that definition applies to BrightNShiny > now look up obstinate, that definition applies you you > and is the source of said sarcasm To be clear, are you saying that **BandS** ’s use of sarcasm constituted good argument? ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2014, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoshana-roberts-a-street-walker-10-hours-films-herself-being-harassed/702930/610 "2014-11-03T14:29:18Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > The very subject under debate is: to what extent an unrequested greeting suffers from social opprobrium. To argue that engaging a woman on the street is analogous to offering candy to children from a car is obviously advantageous to your position, because the concept of a stranger offering candy to children is nearly universally acknowledged as undesirable behavior. > > But it’s not a valid analogy in this instance, because it suffers from the [fallacy of “begging the question:”](http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/begging-the-question.html) it assumes the truth of that which it sets out to prove. I think you’ve misunderstood the argument of the parody. The parody is not trying to prove a certain behavior is unacceptable. Rather, it is trying to prove that certain arguments for its acceptability don’t work. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2014, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoshana-roberts-a-street-walker-10-hours-films-herself-being-harassed/702930/611 "2014-11-03T14:30:42Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > To be clear, are you saying that **BandS** ’s use of sarcasm constituted good argument? yes, because it clearly indicates your level of denial. no one is actually saying giving kids candy is as bad as cat calling women. again, you are in denial, the response is sarcasm. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2014, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoshana-roberts-a-street-walker-10-hours-films-herself-being-harassed/702930/612 "2014-11-03T14:34:09Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > yes, because it clearly indicates your level of denial. no one is actually saying giving kids candy is as bad as cat calling women. again, you are in denial, the response is sarcasm. Correct – but that highlights the weakness of parody as argument. I certainly understand **BS** ’s prose to be sarcastic; I am denying that it is good argument. Do you believe it to be to good argument? You say “yes.” Perhaps I need to further clarify what you mean. In the context of debate, do you consider his approach to be good argument? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2014, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoshana-roberts-a-street-walker-10-hours-films-herself-being-harassed/702930/613 "2014-11-03T14:39:08Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > I think you’ve misunderstood the argument of the parody. The parody is not trying to prove a certain behavior is unacceptable. Rather, it is trying to prove that certain arguments for its acceptability don’t work. But the “proof” is to show that those same arguments, when applied to another behavior, don’t produce a palatable result, right? I’m saying the flaw in that approach is that the unpalatable results are inherent in the new example, and NOT the result of the logical reasoning, because the premises are different. If we were discussing mercy killing or assisted suicide, and an argument was made for killing a pet gerbil that was ill, I might object by pointing out that even though the gerbil parody used the same arguments as the mercy killing, the underpinnning facts are different enough that the analogy is doomed: people’s should be weighed differently from gerbils, _regardless of whether you ultimately accept or reject mercy killing as allowable._ ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2014, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoshana-roberts-a-street-walker-10-hours-films-herself-being-harassed/702930/614 "2014-11-03T14:53:46Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Correct – but that highlights the weakness of parody as argument. I certainly understand **BS** ’s prose to be sarcastic; I am denying that it is good argument. > > Do you believe it to be to good argument? You say “yes.” > > Perhaps I need to further clarify what you mean. In the context of debate, do you consider his approach to be good argument? :smack:when YOUR position is so weak that the only way you can defend yourself is complaing about “sarcasm”, thats not good ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2014, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoshana-roberts-a-street-walker-10-hours-films-herself-being-harassed/702930/615 "2014-11-03T14:59:03Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > :smack:when YOUR position is so weak that the only way you can defend yourself is complaing about “sarcasm”, thats not good I’m not complaining about sarcasm qua sarcasm, Robert. I’m saying that sarcasm is not the same as strong argument in a debate. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2014, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoshana-roberts-a-street-walker-10-hours-films-herself-being-harassed/702930/616 "2014-11-03T15:37:41Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I’m not complaining about sarcasm qua sarcasm, Robert. I’m saying that sarcasm is not the same as strong argument in a debate. the sarcasm is a result of your inability to “respond” to strong arguments that aren’t sarcastic. neither approach works with you. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2014, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoshana-roberts-a-street-walker-10-hours-films-herself-being-harassed/702930/617 "2014-11-03T15:43:22Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > But the “proof” is to show that those same arguments, when applied to another behavior, don’t produce a palatable result, right? No, I don’t think that’s the point. I think the point is to show that those same arguments, when applied to another behavior, don’t produce _plausible_ results. This suggests that the reasoning of the arguments is flawed. The “unpalatibility” of the parody subject certainly does some rhetorical work here, but behind the rhetoric is a logically plausible reductio argument. “You’re saying that X, thought unpalatable by some, is actually acceptable. But if we apply the same reasoning to Y, also thought unpalatable by some, we should (if your reasoning works) see that Y is actually acceptable. But we don’t. This suggests there is a flaw in your reasoning.” It’s similar to the “perfect island” reply to the ontological argument–it shows that _something_ is wrong with the reasoning, though it doesn’t show _what_ is wrong with the reasoning. But **BrightNShiny** ’s parody doesn’t claim to diagnose the problem with the arguments, rather it is just intended to show that the problem exists. ---
**Author:** ![Nema98](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/d2c977/32.png) [@Nema98](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nema98)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2014, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoshana-roberts-a-street-walker-10-hours-films-herself-being-harassed/702930/618 "2014-11-03T15:59:47Z")
Many women experience some sort of harassment unfortunately. I do not think a greeting is a type of it unless followed by aggressive behavior. That said said I won’t donate anything to her and her group. At the end of the day she is one of internet attention seekers. I’m under 30 and would not give her a second glance. She made a point now she should get lost. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2014, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoshana-roberts-a-street-walker-10-hours-films-herself-being-harassed/702930/619 "2014-11-03T16:32:49Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > No, I don’t think that’s the point. I think the point is to show that those same arguments, when applied to another behavior, don’t produce _plausible_ results. This suggests that the reasoning of the arguments is flawed. > > The “unpalatibility” of the parody subject certainly does some rhetorical work here, but behind the rhetoric is a logically plausible reductio argument. “You’re saying that X, thought unpalatable by some, is actually acceptable. **But if we apply the same reasoning to Y** , also thought unpalatable by some, we should (if your reasoning works) see that Y is actually acceptable. But we don’t. This suggests there is a flaw in your reasoning.” > > It’s similar to the “perfect island” reply to the ontological argument–it shows that _something_ is wrong with the reasoning, though it doesn’t show _what_ is wrong with the reasoning. But **BrightNShiny** ’s parody doesn’t claim to diagnose the problem with the arguments, rather it is just intended to show that the problem exists. (my bold) The sarcasm and parody are humorous and amusing, but constitute a poor argument and are not persuasive. The reason it fails is as \*\*Bricker \*_described and because of the bolded section above. The reasoning is not the same. Like the expression, “if my grandmother had wheels…” On a separate note, I was at the store this weekend and while waiting in line a lady had the gall to ask me how old my kid was_. It was like she was demanding an answer, and I never felt so threatened. I have no idea why a person would engage in behavior they know for a fact that some portion of the world may find hurtful and threatening. I felt so harassed I just didn’t know what to do. But then, I remembered we were under some arbitrary roof, so that meant I should be fine with the interaction. WTF, I didn’t put that roof there, and I didn’t ask this person to try and talk with me. How dare she! I should make a video. \*in reality, we talked about the kids’ school, completed our purchases, and were on our way. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2014, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoshana-roberts-a-street-walker-10-hours-films-herself-being-harassed/702930/620 "2014-11-03T16:45:00Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > (my bold) > The sarcasm and parody are humorous and amusing, but constitute a poor argument and are not persuasive. The reason it fails is as \*\*Bricker \*\*described and because of the bolded section above. The reasoning is not the same. Like the expression, _“if my grandmother had wheels…”_ The problem alluded to by the quotation about grandmothers and wheels is the problem of knowing what counterfactual hypotheticals are actually stipulating. If I say “If I’d thrown the ball a second later” the context generally makes it clear that I mean to specify a counterfactual situation in which the laws of physics stay the same, everything physically happens just as it would have, and the only difference is that I hesitate a second before throwing the ball. But once you get to very strange counterfactuals like “if my grandmother had wheels” it becomes much harder to say what the speaker is trying to specify, because of the difficulty involved in imagining how the scenario could come about in the first place. None of this is really relevant to the parody argument we’re talking about. That argument doesn’t involve (in any logically crucial way) observations about how things counterfactually would have gone in a difficult-to-imagine scenario. When I say the reasoning is the same, what I mean is that the logical structure of the arguments (the originals and the ones parodying them) are the same. > [@](#): > > On a separate note, I was at the store this weekend and while waiting in line a lady had the gall to ask me how old my kid was\*. It was like she was demanding an answer, and I never felt so threatened. I have no idea why a person would engage in behavior they know for a fact that some portion of the world may find hurtful and threatening. I felt so harassed I just didn’t know what to do. But then, I remembered we were under some arbitrary roof, so that meant I should be fine with the interaction. WTF, I didn’t put that roof there, and I didn’t ask this person to try and talk with me. How dare she! I should make a video. A couple of important and relevant differences between your situation and the catcalling situation: 1. People do not routinely report feeling threatened or put-off by this kind of behavior 2. There was no systemic power or status differential dynamic in your situation What are some important relevant differences between the catcalling situation and the parody situation presented by **BrightNShiny**? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoshana-roberts-a-street-walker-10-hours-films-herself-being-harassed/702930.md?page=30) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoshana-roberts-a-street-walker-10-hours-films-herself-being-harassed/702930.md?page=32)