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Comment by CTDOCodebases | Hacker News Reader

They are complicit though because in this case whatever value they hold (labor, baby factory, social connection) goes away when they refuse to do those things or get killed while refusing.

In your analogy imagine being held at gunpoint knowing that if you give up your riches you will ultimately survive but the behavior that caused you to give up your riches will be incentivized and perpetuated due to your compliance. Now contrast that with the situation where you refuse to hand over your riches and the would be robber walks away or kills you only to have the riches disappear the instant you do.

Granted it is not an easy situation for an individual to make but choosing to be complicit and acting accordingly is still an exercise of an individuals agency.

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> survive but the behavior that caused you to give up your riches will be incentivized and perpetuated due to your compliance

I'm really confused by this, it feels like a modern framing is being applied to a really long period of time a very very long time ago.

Why would a band of pillagers stop pillaging because the women in one village slit their throats rather than be taken captive? If anything, it seems more likely that a band would settle down and take over existing defenses and start a new life if there were people there to start new lives with, even as slaves.

Anyway it seems a little silly to suggest ancient peoples would be concerned with, or should be concerned with, the greater incentive structure of pillaging. Either way, pillagers gonna pillage.

> Anyway it seems a little silly to suggest ancient peoples would be concerned with, or should be concerned with, the greater incentive structure of pillaging. Either way, pillagers gonna pillage.

I am not asserting this. It's simply a matter of did the women help or hinder the violence? I argue that by virtue of being taken captive with hopes of integrating into the new tribe in some shape or form they helped perpetuated the violence.

> I argue that by virtue of being taken captive with hopes of integrating into the new tribe in some shape or form they helped perpetuated the violence.

If you share this opinion with some women you know irl, I would be really interested to hear how they respond.

Ill do it and get back to you.

I get you’re trying to make some argument about the roles we take, ultimately, because of our personal decisions in life situations, but complying with a robbers demands does not make me complicit in the crime. Those are two different concepts.

That is not a correct use of the word complicit.

>Associated with or participating in a questionable act or a crime; having complicity.

>Associated with or participating in an activity, especially one of a questionable nature.

I find it sickening that someone would even try to describe a woman having to give up her agency due to not having the physical power to fight off a man as “complicit”.

> I find it sickening that someone would even try to describe a woman having to give up her agency due to not having the physical power to fight off a man as “complicit”.

It's a dark way of thinking about it but I guess it's why 'just following orders' is generally not considered a valid legal or moral excuse even in situations when insubordination likely results in death or imprisonment.

Prisoners of war are complicit in their captor's war crimes?

I am not talking about decision in a legal context.

I am talking about cause and effect.

My point is that actions (or lack of action) determine the outcome. The emotions that the actor feels towards the available actions does not determine the outcome of whatever action they choose. Just the actions count.

This is a pretty twisted interpretation of the term complicit.

By your definition every girl who has been raped or abused and survived is.

No.

Some situations like a single instance of SA cannot be reasonably predicted and attempts at fight, flight or freeze will end up with SA occurring regardless.

So in these situations the person who is being assaulted is not complicit because no action whatsoever could have prevented the SA from happening.

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