Yes, agreed.

Okay, yes, I can believe that some people may have down voted for this reason.

Personally I think the side track has been very interesting and am glad it has happened. While it was not my intent to talk about rape as more than a removed example of a complex issue, I think it is a very important topic where most people are ignorant even regarding what is known, and that there is a lot unknown about, where really awful things happen to many people in the present. What the study I linked reports fits with my personal observations as I have learned more and more about what goes on behind closed doors from being part of the psych world. I've been pretty blown away as I've come to realize the scope of what is going on, how it is silenced, in this present day and age, etc.

Getting it actually discussed in nuance with multiple viewpoints present has been awesome, and I would not object to my posts continuing to go off topic so productively. 1 I would expect this group you describe of people who don't like going off-topic to be one of many voting blocks.

Do you have any idea of how much people usually down vote when a post goes off topic in a similar way, especially any examples that are not emotionally charged?

I suppose I have just pointed at another potential group, which is one that just hates emotional charge and down votes anything that is likely to become heated for the sake of not liking emotion regardless of topic. I can certainly believe that this group exists and may account for enough to be a voting population as well - despite the impressive low volume of flame on this post, this group may even stop reading and click the down button at my first line giving the warning.

1 The discussion can also be tied back into the initial point I was trying to make although I hadn't done this yet - now that the nuances on this topic are starting to get unpacked in the comments, think about how changing any single variable would create an uproar in current culture. With so many strong and conflicting opinions, you've got to address the overall culture before you can do anything and not have it result in a lot of grief - even if your proposed change is one that would be an improvement if other variables shift.

I find it likely that the percentage of rapists on LessWrong is roughly comparable to the percentage of rapists in U.S. colleges. Maybe a little lower, maybe a little higher, but not significantly different.

Given a base rate of 6%, I'd be astounded if the rate among male Less Wrong commenters were lower than 3% or higher than 8%; and I would dismiss out of hand a claim that it was lower than 1% or higher than 10%.

In general, I expect that rapists (as we're using the term here) are present in any large group, and that I have no way of distinguishing them from non-rapists.

It's to the benefit of women and normal men to develop accurate heuristics to distinguish rapist men from normal men. The "Schrödinger's Rapist" situation results from such heuristics being absent, or unavailable due to lack of information.

(Yes, I feel okay saying that the 94% of men who are not rapists are "normal men" … and that rapists are not.)

One of the bigger heuristics suggested by the Lisak & Miller study is that repeat rapists commit (on average) about ten times as many non-rape violent crimes as normal men do.

Some other studies suggest other heuristics: rapists have more anger and hostility toward women than normal men do, and rapists have less empathy toward women who have been sexually assaulted than normal men do.

Does that answer your questions (both explicit and implicit)?

Yes, thank you.

Incidentally: do you assume I'm not one of those men? If so, on what basis?

I assume you are most likely not one of those men based on the assumption that they are only somewhere around 6% of the population. I'd put the odds slightly higher since you are interested enough in the topic to write in the comments and initially said something dismissive, but not a whole lot higher. Most likely you're a nice and respectful guy in control of your impulses in as much as the rest of the population, and I prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt.

I find it likely that the percentage of rapists on LessWrong is roughly comparable to the percentage of rapists in U.S. colleges. Maybe a little lower, maybe a little higher, but not significantly different. In general, I expect that rapists (as we're using the term here) are present in any large group, and that I have no way of distinguishing them from non-rapists.

Why? The demographics of LW are unusual in all kinds of way. e.g., a sex ratio of about 9 males per female (and males tend to rape more), average IQ probably in the 130s (and high-IQ people are less likely to have any sex, let alone non-consensual one), etc. OTOH, given that there are effects with different signs, I'm not sure what the sign of the total effect would be.