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Just to be clear, the parent of my comment is absolutely not true. You are told the adult equivalent of "just ignore them" when faced with a mugging (do what t
by dimino 10y ago
Just to be clear, the parent of my comment is absolutely not true. You are told the adult equivalent of "just ignore them" when faced with a mugging (do what they say, give them what they want, your wallet isn't worth your life).
Furthermore, in most states, you do not have a legal "right" to stand your ground when attacked, you are expected to retreat if possible, and there are very frequently countersuits on the behalf of the assailant that are successful in civil courts, not to mention the criminal charges that may stem from "defending yourself" against an assailant, especially depending on how much damage you do.
It's alarming to me the number of people in this comment section who believe violence will solve a problem for children or adults. It's also alarming this "if adults were in situations like children are" analogy is getting so much attention. Kids are not adults, they lack the cognitive capacity to reason as adults, and need safe places to learn how to be humans. We're casually throwing away hundreds of years of experimental results and academic consensus on childhood because our two-minute reasoning is superior.
Come on, HN, we can do better.
- mikeash 10y agoAre you implying that locking hundreds or thousands of children in a building all day with periods of minimal supervision is a system built on hundreds of years of experimental results and academic consensus? You are not simply told to ignore muggers. You are told to comply with muggers because muggers are life-threatening. You are also told to fight back if they go from threatening your wallet to threatening your physical well-being. Many places will actually send out the authorities to search for and imprison muggers after you report them. You are definitely not supposed to "just ignore them," you're supposed to do what it takes to survive, then report them, and have them brought to justice. I don't see people saying violence is a solution, only that it can sometimes be the best choice out of a bunch of bad ones if you're in a situation where the authorities have failed you and you have to fend for yourself. Me, I'm advocating the exact opposite of violence being a solution: I'm saying, repeatedly, that schools need to do more to prevent violence, precisely so children don't have to take matters into their own hands. Come on, you can do better than this weird straw-manning.
- theorique 10y agoYou are also told to fight back if they go from threatening your wallet to threatening your physical well-being. Many places will actually send out the authorities to search for and imprison muggers after you report them. You are definitely not supposed to "just ignore them," you're supposed to do what it takes to survive, then report them, and have them brought to justice. Exactly. If a mugging turns into a kidnapping, the recommended practice is for the victim to not go with the criminal, and to fight back or attempt to escape by whatever means available. For crime victims who are transported by criminals to a so-called "secondary crime scene", the survival statistics are much worse than in the case of a simple mugging.
- dimino 10y agoIt makes sense to me that we are no longer talking about a mugging, because if we were, then what I said would have been true. The fact that this argument had to shift to a kidnapping in order to continue should be testament enough to the validity of my original point.