Generally speaking, there’s a lot of options grownups in real life resort to before they resort to violence, and I would have no problem with a post describing the fully generic considerations and how far you’d actually have to go down the decision tree before you got to violence, without any identifiables being named. People who honestly don’t realize this would be welcome to read that post. I may be somewhat prejudiced by considering it completely obvious that jumping straight to violence as a cognitive answer and then blathering about your conspiracy on the Internet is merely stupid.
Someone lives in an area where there recently been a number of violent muggings. They are considering bringing a gun with them when they go out, in order to defend themself; they suspect they may be overestimating the danger based on news reports. So they decide to ask here if there are any relevant biases that may be coloring their judgement., and this leads into a general discussion of what chance there should be of encountering violent criminals before it becomes rational to arm yourself (and risk accidentally injuring or killing yourself or passersby.)
Discussion on lesswrong is not likely to give them an answer. Honestly, I can’t think of any public place on the internet that is likely to be all that helpful, unfortunately.
What if someone is, y’know, unsure?
Generally speaking, there’s a lot of options grownups in real life resort to before they resort to violence, and I would have no problem with a post describing the fully generic considerations and how far you’d actually have to go down the decision tree before you got to violence, without any identifiables being named. People who honestly don’t realize this would be welcome to read that post. I may be somewhat prejudiced by considering it completely obvious that jumping straight to violence as a cognitive answer and then blathering about your conspiracy on the Internet is merely stupid.
That … doesn’t seem to answer my question.
Perhaps an example is in order.
Someone lives in an area where there recently been a number of violent muggings. They are considering bringing a gun with them when they go out, in order to defend themself; they suspect they may be overestimating the danger based on news reports. So they decide to ask here if there are any relevant biases that may be coloring their judgement., and this leads into a general discussion of what chance there should be of encountering violent criminals before it becomes rational to arm yourself (and risk accidentally injuring or killing yourself or passersby.)
Does this help clarify my problem?
Discussion on lesswrong is not likely to give them an answer. Honestly, I can’t think of any public place on the internet that is likely to be all that helpful, unfortunately.