7 ms·

The problem with hitchhiking is that you don't pick someone at random, someone decides to pick you up. If you pick a random person, they'll almost certainly be

The problem with hitchhiking is that you don't pick someone at random, someone decides to pick you up. If you pick a random person, they'll almost certainly be a normal, honest person. If you advertise yourself with a giant sign "I WILL GET IN YOUR CAR IF YOU STOP", then a small percentage of random strangers, but a large percentage of opportunistic criminals, will stop. I'd argue she got very lucky.

netsharc 7y ago
It seems like hitchhiking works then! In safe areas, and in super dangerous areas when you look vulnerable... All those families stopped because they were afraid for her well-being. But still, super lucky, if a criminal had got on that road ahead of the family, the story might have been different.
- jaco8 7y ago
  I agree. I was forced to hitch-hike in Guatemala after missing the last bus . I also was picked up by a family and sat in the back of their truck for about 100km. When I got off at 9pm they advised to only continue to hitch on mining trucks or oil tankers during the night. I still remember sitting under a huge banana leaf during torrential rain waiting for hours for a truck to stop. The driver later dropped me off in the middle of no where and said a bus would stop there by 5.30am and indeed it did stop, but it was full so I was sitting on the roof of the bus for the next three hours together with 10 other souls.
DoreenMichele 7y ago
I have reservations about the explanation that a consistent positive outcome can be chalked up to pure luck. She may not know what she was "doing right," but I think it more likely she was doing something that helped foster positive outcomes.
- ALittleLight 7y ago
  You may want to consider the rates of homicide and rape in Mexico before determining that one person's experience of not being hurt is that compelling.
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    I'm a woman who was homeless for nearly six years. Homeless women also are at high risk of being raped, which is one of the reasons you see relatively few women on the street compared to men. I was never raped while on the street. I also have lived without a car for more than a decade and accepted many rides from strangers. None of those rides ended tragically either. I get told a lot I'm just lucky. It's a left-handed way of assuming a woman has no idea what she's talking about and can't possibly be competent.
    - xmprt 7y ago
      Are you claiming that women are in control of whether or not they get raped?
      - DoreenMichele 7y ago
        I'm claiming that a long track record of success is probably not pure luck. Occam's Razor. One factor in me not being raped while homeless was that I was usually not alone. There is safety in numbers.
        ALittleLight 7y ago
        The city in the US with the highest rape rate is Anchorage Alaska with 200 rapes per hundred thousand people. Without taking into account any of many relevant complications, that's a 0.2% chance to get raped annually, or a 99.8% chance of not getting raped. Suppose a woman went 6 years in Anchorage. There's a 99.8% ^ 6 chance of her not getting raped. 98.8% chance in other words. Would a woman who had not been raped after 6 years in Anchorage persuade you that Anchorage wasn't a more dangerous place than most? Your comment here is hard to grasp given your previous comment. Mexico has a significantly higher crime rate than the US. As you acknowledge, being by yourself makes you more vulnerable. Being young makes you more vulnerable. A young girl hitchhiking by herself in Mexico is incredibly vulnerable. What are the odds that she will be raped or murdered over a few months of traveling? They may be 10 or 20%. They may be higher! The fact that a girl had the most likely outcome happen doesn't prove or suggest anything. You can play Russian Roulette and you'll have a 5/6 chance of surviving. That doesn't mean it's a good idea to play. If someone plays three rounds, that doesn't make it safe. I hope you'd agree that members of vulnerable populations should take extra precautions to mitigate their vulnerability. As per your own example, staying with other people in dangerous times and places.
- marvin 7y ago
  I would guess that GP's reasoning is flawed; in this part of the world, the likelihood of a "normal, honest person" picking up a young woman is much higher, due to the knowledge of a high crime rate.
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    I don't doubt that's a factor. But I also know that I have a very long track record of successfully negotiating circumstances that others deem untenable and I've actually taken college classes in subjects such as Negotiation and Conflict Management. Nonetheless, I am consistently and insistently told that I am simply lucky as the entire explanation for those outcomes. It doesn't matter how reasonably I engage, I'm outright dismissed in a manner consistent with the idea that no woman is capable of having useful skills that substantially influence the odds that they will remain safe. No matter how clearly I state that luck is always a factor in all situations and so forth, I get basically this la, la, la not listening! response. This has been a consistent pattern across various forums for many years. Ergo, my conclusion that it boils down to an assumption that women can't actually be competent that I stated in some other comment here.
    - marvin 7y ago
      It makes sense that competence can look like blind luck to people who are unfamiliar with the environment, if it's an environment that behaves in a subtle way and is rarely experienced by an average person. I'd guess that some social environments often behave like this, where information is difficult to objectively classify and measure, but someone with great people skills will be able to reliably get an indication of risk and intentions. Maybe some extreme sports practicioners experience the same type of dismissal. Funnily, come to think of it, investment/asset management falls into something that looks like a similar situation. In that case, it's very difficult to objectively assess whether great performance is luck or skill. I've always believed that some in the latter category are mistaken for being in the former. But it would be impossible to tell without having very specialized and specific skills, and almost impossible to do so in an objective and repeatable way.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > I have reservations about the explanation that a consistent positive outcome can be chalked up to pure luck. It's not even necessarily much luck: if the per-day probability of a violent attack while hitchhiking in Mexico were 1 in 50, which would still be extremely dangerous, it would only be slightly better than average results to go a month straight without an attack.

netsharc 7y ago

It seems like hitchhiking works then! In safe areas, and in super dangerous areas when you look vulnerable... All those families stopped because they were afraid for her well-being. But still, super lucky, if a criminal had got on that road ahead of the family, the story might have been different.

jaco8 7y ago
I agree. I was forced to hitch-hike in Guatemala after missing the last bus . I also was picked up by a family and sat in the back of their truck for about 100km. When I got off at 9pm they advised to only continue to hitch on mining trucks or oil tankers during the night. I still remember sitting under a huge banana leaf during torrential rain waiting for hours for a truck to stop. The driver later dropped me off in the middle of no where and said a bus would stop there by 5.30am and indeed it did stop, but it was full so I was sitting on the roof of the bus for the next three hours together with 10 other souls.

DoreenMichele 7y ago

I have reservations about the explanation that a consistent positive outcome can be chalked up to pure luck. She may not know what she was "doing right," but I think it more likely she was doing something that helped foster positive outcomes.

ALittleLight 7y ago
You may want to consider the rates of homicide and rape in Mexico before determining that one person's experience of not being hurt is that compelling.
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  I'm a woman who was homeless for nearly six years. Homeless women also are at high risk of being raped, which is one of the reasons you see relatively few women on the street compared to men. I was never raped while on the street. I also have lived without a car for more than a decade and accepted many rides from strangers. None of those rides ended tragically either. I get told a lot I'm just lucky. It's a left-handed way of assuming a woman has no idea what she's talking about and can't possibly be competent.
  - xmprt 7y ago
    Are you claiming that women are in control of whether or not they get raped?
    - DoreenMichele 7y ago
      I'm claiming that a long track record of success is probably not pure luck. Occam's Razor. One factor in me not being raped while homeless was that I was usually not alone. There is safety in numbers.
      - ALittleLight 7y ago
        The city in the US with the highest rape rate is Anchorage Alaska with 200 rapes per hundred thousand people. Without taking into account any of many relevant complications, that's a 0.2% chance to get raped annually, or a 99.8% chance of not getting raped. Suppose a woman went 6 years in Anchorage. There's a 99.8% ^ 6 chance of her not getting raped. 98.8% chance in other words. Would a woman who had not been raped after 6 years in Anchorage persuade you that Anchorage wasn't a more dangerous place than most? Your comment here is hard to grasp given your previous comment. Mexico has a significantly higher crime rate than the US. As you acknowledge, being by yourself makes you more vulnerable. Being young makes you more vulnerable. A young girl hitchhiking by herself in Mexico is incredibly vulnerable. What are the odds that she will be raped or murdered over a few months of traveling? They may be 10 or 20%. They may be higher! The fact that a girl had the most likely outcome happen doesn't prove or suggest anything. You can play Russian Roulette and you'll have a 5/6 chance of surviving. That doesn't mean it's a good idea to play. If someone plays three rounds, that doesn't make it safe. I hope you'd agree that members of vulnerable populations should take extra precautions to mitigate their vulnerability. As per your own example, staying with other people in dangerous times and places.
marvin 7y ago
I would guess that GP's reasoning is flawed; in this part of the world, the likelihood of a "normal, honest person" picking up a young woman is much higher, due to the knowledge of a high crime rate.
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  I don't doubt that's a factor. But I also know that I have a very long track record of successfully negotiating circumstances that others deem untenable and I've actually taken college classes in subjects such as Negotiation and Conflict Management. Nonetheless, I am consistently and insistently told that I am simply lucky as the entire explanation for those outcomes. It doesn't matter how reasonably I engage, I'm outright dismissed in a manner consistent with the idea that no woman is capable of having useful skills that substantially influence the odds that they will remain safe. No matter how clearly I state that luck is always a factor in all situations and so forth, I get basically this la, la, la not listening! response. This has been a consistent pattern across various forums for many years. Ergo, my conclusion that it boils down to an assumption that women can't actually be competent that I stated in some other comment here.
  - marvin 7y ago
    It makes sense that competence can look like blind luck to people who are unfamiliar with the environment, if it's an environment that behaves in a subtle way and is rarely experienced by an average person. I'd guess that some social environments often behave like this, where information is difficult to objectively classify and measure, but someone with great people skills will be able to reliably get an indication of risk and intentions. Maybe some extreme sports practicioners experience the same type of dismissal. Funnily, come to think of it, investment/asset management falls into something that looks like a similar situation. In that case, it's very difficult to objectively assess whether great performance is luck or skill. I've always believed that some in the latter category are mistaken for being in the former. But it would be impossible to tell without having very specialized and specific skills, and almost impossible to do so in an objective and repeatable way.
dragonwriter 7y ago
> I have reservations about the explanation that a consistent positive outcome can be chalked up to pure luck. It's not even necessarily much luck: if the per-day probability of a violent attack while hitchhiking in Mexico were 1 in 50, which would still be extremely dangerous, it would only be slightly better than average results to go a month straight without an attack.