.

Friday, May 15, 2009

Fight or give up what’s in your pockets?

This is regarding the comments in the previous post, a delicate matter and something where ego comes into play.
I’m the first one to support the right to do as much bodily harm as possible to someone that threatens to hurt you and your family.
Now, lets think practical as well. Surrender yourself and leave yourself and your family at the mercy of these beast? No, Hell no.
But in some occasions it’s abundantly clear that what they want is strictly quick cash, your car or cell.
This happens all day, all around the world, and here in Argentina, in spite of the much more violent than average crime, 8 out of 10 times, all they truly want is your cell, cash or car. I think this statistic is quite accurate compared to what I hear and see almost on daily basis.
Even within my family, my sister was carjacked, my brother had his wallet robbed a couple times, my parents where mugged on the street. They gave up what they had, and that was it.
This isn’t an exact science, you have to make a decision and do your best to see the bad guy’s true intentions.
If I’m on the street and someone catches me off guard and demands my wallet or car keys, specially when they already have you at gun point, I assure you I’d hand over the money or car keys immediately.
“Get moving we’re going to your house”
Now that’s something else, at least to me that’s worth making a move and risk getting killed, protect your family.
But with a clear statement like that, “Dude, you keys”, just give up the darn keys, swallow your pride, and spare yourself a lot of headaches.
Here’s a video by James Yeager. I pretty much share his point of view. I think I posted this before last year, but it’s worth watching again.


I wouldn’t be honest if I said I shared James statement about spending 100 dollars to save a bad guys life. As a matter of fact I'd do the world a favor and kill him if I knew all I had to pay was 100 dollars, knowing fully well that these beasts will later rob and probably end up hurting or even killing weaker older people, women and children.
As disturbed as the criminal may be, as much of a victim of society as he probably is, I’d sure kill him just for threatening my life, so no, I can’t honestly say I’d spend 5 cents to save these scumbag’s life.
I view this from another angle “Is this SOB life worth MY 2000 USD ?(bare minimum in lawyer expenses around here) And to that, my answer is the same, no. As much as I ‘d like to put down this animal, part of the problem that terrorizes my country every day, he’s not worth my time and my money.

FerFAL

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, this video was made in the US and directed to US citizens. Problem with handing over my wallet with, say, a paltry $60 in it is there is also a credit card and a debit card. There is also my driver's license, my pistol permit, both of which have my address printed on them. There is also a my medical insurance card. What is missing from my wallet is pictures of my kids and wife because I don't want them to be identifiable in case my wallet goes. Sure, I can keep all of these things in separate places on my body or carry a fake wallet with a few dollars in it, but neither of those things are practical. My car (if I were to be carjacked) has a registration certificate with my address on it AND my garage door opener. So the way I look at it is, if possible, I would NOT hand over my wallet as this guy suggests in the video (or car) to save the trouble of defending myself later on if I can help it. Doing so would be like giving the mugger a road map to my house.

Jason said...

"Is this SOB life worth MY 2000 USD ?"

How about the lives and property of all his future victims? The answer to this question is the difference between civil society from barbarism.

Yes, for the individual, there is a price to be paid, possibly the ultimate one. But there will be a price regardless. It can't be eliminated, only delayed. I won't say that everyone must be a self-sacrificing hero, willing to pay it out of their own pocket. That's an ideal that only some will live up to. But I do not appreciate attacks on the ideal itself. When we criticize rather than celebrate those who live up to it, we introduce a pernicious social rot. When we call them 'foolish' we're making it less likely that others will try to emulate them, increasing the costs the rest of us will have to pay ourselves.

Go to Wikipedia and look up the following topics:

* Prisoner's dilemma (A simple game describing the tradeoff between personal benefit and collective benefit)
* Tit for Tat (One workable solution to the prisoner's dilemma.)
* Hawk-Dove (A biological, game theory examination of predation and defense.)
* Evolutionarily Stable Strategy and Evolutionarily Stable System (The equilibriums that result from a costs of predation and defense.)

Tayous1 said...

My Father had taken a street survival class when I was younger after he got back from it he always carried a money clip with 5- one dollar bills and 1- five dollar bill round the ones.

The guy who taught the class said to them that if a thug wants your money and has a weapon take that money clip out and throw it one way and run the other way. You lose maybe $10 cash and maybe at most a $5 money clip.

As most thugs just want the money that's it and if they see it flying over there head there going after the money not you. If the thug is going to hurt you he was going to do it if you gave him the money or not. When we all turned 16 my father gave us all a money clip with $10.

In all the years or travel he has only had to use this once and he made it out safe.