4 ms·

> Can you imagine telling a victim of a mugging (or worse) to "just ignore them" the next time it happens? Isn't this standard advice, to just give them your m

by jacobr 10y ago

> Can you imagine telling a victim of a mugging (or worse) to "just ignore them" the next time it happens? Isn't this standard advice, to just give them your money and avoid escalating the situation?

mikeash 10y ago
Yes, but they'll also make efforts to find and imprison the mugger, suggest being prepared for physical violence in case it ends up being necessary next time, and other such things beyond that.
noxToken 10y ago
It's a slightly different situation. A mugger probably has the advantage of a weapon. Even if you have one as well, their weapon is already prepped for use, so trying to defend yourself against an already brandished weapon is not advisable. Children in schools likely do not have weapons. It's hand-to-hand fighting with only weapons of opportunity (e.g. heavy books) available, and the provoking child likely isn't ready to use a weapon of opportunity. Granted I'm not inherently saying that a victim should always deck a bully in the face. If that were the case, however, I'd say that child v bully has the advantage over the mugger v victim.
- mikeash 10y ago
  That's an excellent point. When people tell you that you should comply with a mugger, that's because there's a serious threat of being killed, and compliance offers the best chance of surviving the encounter.
  - rabboRubble 10y ago
    Yes for mugging, but not if you are dealing with a would be rapist. Don't fight back, have your account of the event questioned and doubted... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2015/06/23/why-many-rape-victims-dont-fight-or-yell/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2015/06/2...
    - vkou 10y ago
      Fight back against a rapist, maybe get seriously injured or killed. It's damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't.
      - rabboRubble 10y ago
        Yeah, there was a news article in the last couple of weeks about that very thing. Apparently the Baltimore PD have been marking rape reports as unsubstantiated because, at least in one case, the woman didn't fight back under verbal threat. There is something funky with the law either in MD or in Baltimore (don't remember which) that requires the rapist to actually do violence (apparently the unwanted penis isn't enough) for the rape to be counted as a certain type of sexual assault. So all the would be rapist has to say "if you fight back, I'll kill you", the victim believes the rapist and doesn't fight back, and bingo-bango under the law, the rape is unsubstantiated. In at least one case, a serial rapist rapist walked free because he had no prior history of sexual crimes. Because prior reports were unsubstantiated since the prior victims didn't fight back. Tried to find this article without joy. One of the bajillion I come across via RSS.
        mikeash 10y ago
        My understanding is that this sort of thing is pretty common. Traditionally, "rape" required the victim to resist "to the utmost." Our idea of what constitutes rape has broadened considerably, but the law is sometimes slow to catch up. According to this, five US states still have such requirements in their laws: http://www.womenslawproject.org/resources/Rape%20and%20Sexual%20Assault%20in%20the%20Legal%20System%20FINAL.pdf http://www.womenslawproject.org/resources/Rape%20and%20Sexua... Many others make no mention either way, and I suspect many of them would then fall back to the traditional requirement.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
wyager 10y ago
In some social groups. Rural Texan society would probably advocate shooting a mugger. I suspect the Texan approach is better for society as a whole.
- Singletoned 10y ago
  Do you mean that it is better for society that Texans get shot, or that we should all be shooting muggers?
  - logfromblammo 10y ago
    It would be better if all muggers were afraid of the possibility of being shot by their chosen victims. While some fraction would then escalate to rendering their victims unable to shoot prior to approaching, I think a greater fraction would simply choose a less confrontational way to acquire spending money. Those who did not change tactics would eventually get shot. If the prey people change tactics, so will the predator people. Shooting the muggers tends to produce a wilier, more dangerous, harder-to-shoot breed of mugger. There will be fewer of them, but instead of waving their knife in your face, they will bash the back of your head with a rock. While you are out, they will photograph everything in your wallet before putting it right back in your pocket, and take just your phone and gun. Then if you don't report all your cards as stolen, someone buys your details from a darkweb site, does a little social engineering, and cleans out your accounts.
    - wyager 10y ago
      Mugging isn't a profitable enough business to inspire the kind of organization you're imagining.
      - logfromblammo 10y ago
        If I ever damaged my prefrontal cortex to the point where I could incorporate muggings into my personal revenue stream, I would definitely... be a fence for the people that I would advise to perform muggings in that way. Maybe I could also write an app for victims to do self-service muggings, or on-demand muggings--partially automate the process, to improve the mugging experience. See, the real problem with robbing people one at a time is the labor factor. One mugger can rob--what?--maybe two or three people a day without getting caught? I don't even know. There just aren't enough career criminals out there to serve the whole market. If you could somehow automate the process of stealing just a little bit of money from a lot of people, all at once, all the time, that would totally disrupt... ...the banking industry.~ [cue rimshot] Thank you. I'll be here every open mic night.
squeaky-clean 10y ago
> Isn't this standard advice, to just give them your money and avoid escalating the situation? Yeah, and I think it's the best advice for a one-off incident like a mugger or running into bullies in the park. Just worry about your own safety, get out of there as soon as you possibly can, and don't return. A mugger isn't the best comparison. But what if the mugger is there every day at 6pm when you're getting out of the office? Do you just keep buying a new wallet and giving it to them every day? What if the mugger works for the same company as you, and sits 50 feet from you, and every time you walk by them to go to the bathroom they make that exaggerated knuckle-cracking gesture while staring your down and mouthing "six o'clock". Getting bullied in the playground is one thing. It sucks. You can't go back to that park without being beaten up. But if the bully is in your school then your parents, teachers, government all mandate that you see that bully 5 days out of the week.

by jacobr 10y ago

> Can you imagine telling a victim of a mugging (or worse) to "just ignore them" the next time it happens? Isn't this standard advice, to just give them your money and avoid escalating the situation?

mikeash 10y ago

Yes, but they'll also make efforts to find and imprison the mugger, suggest being prepared for physical violence in case it ends up being necessary next time, and other such things beyond that.

noxToken 10y ago

It's a slightly different situation. A mugger probably has the advantage of a weapon. Even if you have one as well, their weapon is already prepped for use, so trying to defend yourself against an already brandished weapon is not advisable. Children in schools likely do not have weapons. It's hand-to-hand fighting with only weapons of opportunity (e.g. heavy books) available, and the provoking child likely isn't ready to use a weapon of opportunity. Granted I'm not inherently saying that a victim should always deck a bully in the face. If that were the case, however, I'd say that child v bully has the advantage over the mugger v victim.

mikeash 10y ago
That's an excellent point. When people tell you that you should comply with a mugger, that's because there's a serious threat of being killed, and compliance offers the best chance of surviving the encounter.
- rabboRubble 10y ago
  Yes for mugging, but not if you are dealing with a would be rapist. Don't fight back, have your account of the event questioned and doubted... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2015/06/23/why-many-rape-victims-dont-fight-or-yell/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2015/06/2...
  - vkou 10y ago
    Fight back against a rapist, maybe get seriously injured or killed. It's damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't.
    - rabboRubble 10y ago
      Yeah, there was a news article in the last couple of weeks about that very thing. Apparently the Baltimore PD have been marking rape reports as unsubstantiated because, at least in one case, the woman didn't fight back under verbal threat. There is something funky with the law either in MD or in Baltimore (don't remember which) that requires the rapist to actually do violence (apparently the unwanted penis isn't enough) for the rape to be counted as a certain type of sexual assault. So all the would be rapist has to say "if you fight back, I'll kill you", the victim believes the rapist and doesn't fight back, and bingo-bango under the law, the rape is unsubstantiated. In at least one case, a serial rapist rapist walked free because he had no prior history of sexual crimes. Because prior reports were unsubstantiated since the prior victims didn't fight back. Tried to find this article without joy. One of the bajillion I come across via RSS.
      - mikeash 10y ago
        My understanding is that this sort of thing is pretty common. Traditionally, "rape" required the victim to resist "to the utmost." Our idea of what constitutes rape has broadened considerably, but the law is sometimes slow to catch up. According to this, five US states still have such requirements in their laws: http://www.womenslawproject.org/resources/Rape%20and%20Sexual%20Assault%20in%20the%20Legal%20System%20FINAL.pdf http://www.womenslawproject.org/resources/Rape%20and%20Sexua... Many others make no mention either way, and I suspect many of them would then fall back to the traditional requirement.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]

wyager 10y ago

In some social groups. Rural Texan society would probably advocate shooting a mugger. I suspect the Texan approach is better for society as a whole.

Singletoned 10y ago
Do you mean that it is better for society that Texans get shot, or that we should all be shooting muggers?
- logfromblammo 10y ago
  It would be better if all muggers were afraid of the possibility of being shot by their chosen victims. While some fraction would then escalate to rendering their victims unable to shoot prior to approaching, I think a greater fraction would simply choose a less confrontational way to acquire spending money. Those who did not change tactics would eventually get shot. If the prey people change tactics, so will the predator people. Shooting the muggers tends to produce a wilier, more dangerous, harder-to-shoot breed of mugger. There will be fewer of them, but instead of waving their knife in your face, they will bash the back of your head with a rock. While you are out, they will photograph everything in your wallet before putting it right back in your pocket, and take just your phone and gun. Then if you don't report all your cards as stolen, someone buys your details from a darkweb site, does a little social engineering, and cleans out your accounts.
  - wyager 10y ago
    Mugging isn't a profitable enough business to inspire the kind of organization you're imagining.
    - logfromblammo 10y ago
      If I ever damaged my prefrontal cortex to the point where I could incorporate muggings into my personal revenue stream, I would definitely... be a fence for the people that I would advise to perform muggings in that way. Maybe I could also write an app for victims to do self-service muggings, or on-demand muggings--partially automate the process, to improve the mugging experience. See, the real problem with robbing people one at a time is the labor factor. One mugger can rob--what?--maybe two or three people a day without getting caught? I don't even know. There just aren't enough career criminals out there to serve the whole market. If you could somehow automate the process of stealing just a little bit of money from a lot of people, all at once, all the time, that would totally disrupt... ...the banking industry.~ [cue rimshot] Thank you. I'll be here every open mic night.

squeaky-clean 10y ago

> Isn't this standard advice, to just give them your money and avoid escalating the situation? Yeah, and I think it's the best advice for a one-off incident like a mugger or running into bullies in the park. Just worry about your own safety, get out of there as soon as you possibly can, and don't return. A mugger isn't the best comparison. But what if the mugger is there every day at 6pm when you're getting out of the office? Do you just keep buying a new wallet and giving it to them every day? What if the mugger works for the same company as you, and sits 50 feet from you, and every time you walk by them to go to the bathroom they make that exaggerated knuckle-cracking gesture while staring your down and mouthing "six o'clock". Getting bullied in the playground is one thing. It sucks. You can't go back to that park without being beaten up. But if the bully is in your school then your parents, teachers, government all mandate that you see that bully 5 days out of the week.