It's disingenuous to switch from your original context in which you, a bystander, urge listeners to believe that this is an unsolvable problem, to the context of the victim, which you aren't.
If you, the bystander, decide to take a stand rather than write this off as too hard a problem to solve, you help the victim by giving them support, and you help future victims by decreasing, however slightly, the chance that harassers will continue to believe that their behavior is tolerable.
If you, the bystander, are willing to spend time on one person who doesn't yet understand but who may be willing to think, and then to move from thought to action, your efforts gain leverage and that minuscule probability decrease becomes larger.
If you, the bystander, continue to do this, even without being a victim yourself; if you do this in places your voice can be heard; if you do this even when you gain no personal benefit, you hopefully influence the people around you to at least think deeper, and from there, to act in some way that fits with their conscience. And in doing so, you give the victims hope for a day when this isn't their norm.
It's not a clogged sink. It's also not an intractable problem.
I have been thinking about this more and more lately. It is a security problem, not a social one.
>So let's fix it.
I posted a thread earlier today trying to solicit advise about solving this and posted some of my own advise. I realized that there is a lot that can be done but I was focusing on the attacker. This is much more about defense than it is about offense.
> This is much more about defense than it is about offense.
What you seem to mean by this is "I don't believe we can prevent threats from being sent".
Harassment is also a cultural issue. A vast amount of people live among a circle of friends who believe that sending things like death threats in anonymous emails is something that can be done light-heartedly. It's what transpires when people downplay the situation by saying "They can't be serious" or to "Just ignore them".
You mix up the need to stop an offender in action, with the need to remove the situations in which someone becomes an offender. Changing this "acceptable threat" culture is the offense you describe as less relevant, but it's key to a long-term change.
Thank you for thinking about this. It's a very worthy topic for thought. If you'd care to link the thread you mention, I'm sure others would like to help.
If you, the bystander, decide to take a stand rather than write this off as too hard a problem to solve, you help the victim by giving them support, and you help future victims by decreasing, however slightly, the chance that harassers will continue to believe that their behavior is tolerable.
If you, the bystander, are willing to spend time on one person who doesn't yet understand but who may be willing to think, and then to move from thought to action, your efforts gain leverage and that minuscule probability decrease becomes larger.
If you, the bystander, continue to do this, even without being a victim yourself; if you do this in places your voice can be heard; if you do this even when you gain no personal benefit, you hopefully influence the people around you to at least think deeper, and from there, to act in some way that fits with their conscience. And in doing so, you give the victims hope for a day when this isn't their norm.
It's not a clogged sink. It's also not an intractable problem.
So let's fix it.