Thought Experiment

[MediumTex]

If anyone would like to ask any additional questions about the event, I will answer them if I can without giving anything away.

Body armor?

Is that your best idea?

[Mountaineer]

OK, you know where I'm coming from on this due to my past conversations.  Most likely, this is what I'd do if faced with the thought experiment scenario: 

I would keep the $500 in my pocket with a note that said "Upon my death, please donate this cash anonymously to the local food bank to feed those who are unable to provide food for their family."  I would then call my Pastor and say "How about coffee in the next day or so?"  This is completely routine for me.  If I were still alive at coffee time, I'd tell him about the death threat, that I cannot change my normal routine without dying instantly, and would ask him to pray for me that God's will be done and to begin planning my funeral."  I would, as I always am, be ready to check out on a moment's notice.  I would, as I always try to do, not to piss anyone off.  I would tell my wife I love her, and fill her in on what may happen.  I'd remind her to look over our investment planning statement and discuss any questions she may have with her.  I'd refresh myself, my wife, and my Pastor about our funeral plans.  I'd give my kids a call and chat normally but probably not burden them with the current death situation I'm facing.  Then I'd do my normal daily routines:  Scripture reading, praying, eating, having fun with my wife, reading, going out to eat with friends, mow the lawn, etc.  No need to change my life for something that is likely out of my control.  I'd try not to focus on myself, I'd try to focus on being ready to expire, and if I thought of a loose end, inform those who need to know.  I'd make amends with anyone who I had a serious disagreement with - currently that is no one and I try to do that immediately anyway.  If the killer appeared, I'd try to tell him, if there were time, about what Jesus has done for him/her and to think about what he is planning to do, assuming I would detect he was planning to kill me.  If he/she listened, great; if not, I would have tried to follow the intent of Matthew 28.  Seriously.  Either way, killed or not, I'm ready for the next phase - eternal life with Jesus.  God is in total control so, if I had some idea to avoid my death that came up after I wrote this post, I'd probably try to do it as I do not think God is finished with me for this current life - but I really don't know what God's plans are, so if my time is up, my time is up and so be it.  In other words, I'd really not change much that I currently do.  I try to live life to be ready to go at all times anyway, but if this thought experiment scenario came to pass, I'd probably try to focus and get my emotions back under control.  I trust God that I'm in his good hands and don't sweat the small stuff (too much  ) of this life.  It is all good!

... Mountaineer

[Cortopassi]

I got it --

What's the last thing someone intent on killing you wants to happen?  Getting caught.

I see body cameras are sub $500 now.  Strap one of those on and go about your normal routine, preferably with a big sign on your body saying I am recording everything.

Too much of a chance of getting caught is usually a great deterrent.

[l82start]

I will spend $500 on building up an immunity to iocane powder.

inconceivable

[MediumTex]

I will see what input dragoncar has after reading what I sent him about the experiment and then I will share the facts surrounding the killer and what would have protected you.

[whatchamacallit]

Get a cancer screening to catch it early?

[dragoncar]

I will see what input dragoncar has after reading what I sent him about the experiment and then I will share the facts surrounding the killer and what would have protected you.

No input... it was an interesting experiment.  Looks like a lot of posters got in the general ballpark.

[MediumTex]

Okay, so the potential gap in the way we think about risk mitigation that I was looking for is is based on our tendency to turn inward for solutions, rather than outward.

The $500 was sort of a red herring, though it could certainly have been spent productively, and I will describe how I would have spent it below, but with a bit of creativity, the same defensive measure could be had for free.

One of the things in particular that some of the responses touched on, but didn't really nail squarely, was the potential defensive opportunities presented by simply talking to people about your situation.  For example, sitting down with your wife, best friend, attorney, business associates, etc. and explaining that an attempt on your life will occur in the next five days and asking for their input on working the problem.  Some of the responses did include efforts at reaching out to others for assistance, but I think that this step is critical and should be at the top of the list of defensive measures, but it requires a person to resist the urge to think in terms of fight or flight at the individual level and bring others into the situation to potentially expand the problem in a way that makes the discovery of the solution easier.

Another defensive measure that I believe is critically important is understanding exactly what your limitations are that create vulnerability in the first place, and that's where our natural survival skills and instincts come into play because they do a pretty good job of keeping us alive, but they also have critical weaknesses, especially when it comes to our need to sleep and our inability to continuously monitor a full 360 degrees of our environment for potential threats (predators have a narrower field of vision because we're not used to being hunted, right?).

There was a strong desire to change the scenario so that the risk could be reduced, as opposed to managed more effectively.  I consider this another variety of turning inward and going with the flight instinct (flee the danger!).  It's a strong instinct.

Finally, I wanted to see how much of a tendency there was to gravitate toward gear as opposed to technique when trying to manage uncertainty.  There were some guns and bulletproof vests, but there were also some really good creative ideas that didn't gravitate toward increasing the available force or increasing one's resistance to force (which are both inward-oriented approaches to risk management).

I hope that you agree that the defensive measure described below would not only mitigate the risk in my hypothetical case, but it would also mitigate a vast range of other legitimate risks that are only dangerous because you don't have any way of seeing them coming at you.

Here's the situation:

On the first night of the experiment, you and a friend are walking across the parking lot to a professional sporting event (you've had tickets for a long time, and you really wanted to attend the event).  As you approach the venue, you see a man in front of you hit the woman he is with.  They are only a few steps in front of you, and you easily step between them as he goes to hit her again.  In the second or two that your action buys, the woman runs off into the crowd and you and the man make eye contact for a fraction of a second before he runs off into the crowd chasing her.  The look you exchange is not that charged, and you are careful not to seem as if you are challenging him, but more like you just happened to be walking that way and you got between them.  You are careful not to seem confrontational since you know someone is going to try to kill you, and the moment passes without leaving much of an impression on you. 

On your way back to your car after the game, the same guy sees you walking in front of him.  He is now very drunk and for whatever reason decides to run up behind you and shove you very hard.  He pushes you hard enough that you fall almost instantly, and on your way down you hit your head on a piece of concrete, fracturing your skull.  Witnesses would later testify in the attacker's murder trial that after you fell he walked up to you deliberately and kicked you in the head near the fracture, which proved to be the fatal blow.

Although there are numerous ways the attack could have been prevented, a simple solution would have been if someone had been walking behind you to alert you to the danger approaching you from the rear in enough time for you to take evasive action.  If you had known he was approaching a moment before he shoved you you could have easily braced your fall or simply moved out of his path. 

For $500 you could have hired someone to simply walk behind you in your blind spot as much as possible and act like a set of eyes in the back of your head.  This person wouldn't be a bodyguard (a bodyguard would cost WAY more than $500 for five days), and it might even be a friend or family member who agreed to perform this function for free for a few days because you were concerned that something might happen to you.  Their job would simply be to yell if they saw anything coming at you from the back that was outside your field of vision.  It's a simple and easy job that someone could be located to perform for $100 or less per day (they would only need to work a few hours each day, since you would only need them with you when you were out in public).

The rationale you would have used in selecting this defensive measure is that you couldn't possibly foresee what type of attacker you would be defending against, and thus you would realize that you would mostly need to rely on your own heightened senses in identifying the danger as early as possible to give you time to react, but no matter how aware you were of your surroundings, you would still have that large blind spot simply because you couldn't see 360 degrees around you at all times.  You would essentially be betting that as a sitting duck anything that would give you more reaction time would improve your chances of survival, as opposed to focusing on specific defensive measures like a firearm or other weapon that you might never have a chance to draw because the attack would be over so quickly.

The point I was hoping to illustrate is that a little bit of interdependence can sometimes be better than a whole lot of independence, but sometimes we don't see these solutions because when faced with a crisis, we may instinctively gravitate toward self-reliance, which can ironically make us MORE vulnerable if we fail to comprehend the true nature of the risks we are trying to mitigate, which often comes down to a blow that is only lethal because we didn't see it coming.

I think that the answers that called for hiring some kind of protection were basically correct, but I wanted the experiment to illustrate that the type of protection you needed didn't rely on any special skills in the person you hired to assist with your protection.  You truly just needed another set of eyes to dramatically improve your chances of survival. 

For many other potential scenarios where an attacker delivers a fatal blow, having a warning even a second or two before the attack occurs could be enough to save your life.

Another defensive measure that would have probably saved you life and that I was sort of hoping someone might suggest would have been if you had simply worn a sturdy helmet of some kind during the five days.  As I thought about many types of fatal attacks, I kept coming back to a lack of strong head and face protection as the difference between life and death in many of them.  Think about how many different activities call for head and face protection that only require minimal protection for the rest of the body (e.g., construction work, motorcycle riding, batting in baseball, horse racing, rock climbing, etc.).

So if you want to stay safe, think about enlisting others to help complement your own survival instincts and consider wearing a helmet.

Thanks for participating.  I hope you found that stimulating.

[dualstow]

Well, I think Tyler really nailed this. Not only did he arrange for a friend to assist, but he also prepared for the contingency that one of the friends could be the killer by using three friends.

Well done!

And, the joke about spending the money on marital counseling, "because let's face it we all know who's really trying to kill you" is probably statistically significant! :-) Around the country, not this forum.

[MachineGhost]

If anyone would like to ask any additional questions about the event, I will answer them if I can without giving anything away.

Body armor?

Is that your best idea?

If you can't change anything about your life or routine then body armor is the only invisible option I can think of, unless there is some new high tech deterrant I don't know about.  Otherwise, you need to use the $500 as an incentive to not be killed, but how offer that to an anonymous killer?

On the other hand, its quite possible the killer is an inanimate object or your own stupidity and you should use the $500 to shore up the weak areas after a safety audit.

[MachineGhost]

For $500 you could have hired someone to simply walk behind you in your blind spot as much as possible and act like a set of eyes in the back of your head.  This person wouldn't be a bodyguard (a bodyguard would cost WAY more than $500 for five days), and it might even be a friend or family member who agreed to perform this function for free for a few days because you were concerned that something might happen to you.  Their job would simply be to yell if they saw anything coming at you from the back that was outside your field of vision.  It's a simple and easy job that someone could be located to perform for $100 or less per day (they would only need to work a few hours each day, since you would only need them with you when you were out in public).

What B.S.!  That is definitely changing your normal life and routine to have someone shadow you in your blind spot because of a vague general threat to your life.

Another defensive measure that would have probably saved you life and that I was sort of hoping someone might suggest would have been if you had simply worn a sturdy helmet of some kind during the five days.  As I thought about many types of fatal attacks, I kept coming back to a lack of strong head and face protection as the difference between life and death in many of them.  Think about how many different activities call for head and face protection that only require minimal protection for the rest of the body (e.g., construction work, motorcycle riding, batting in baseball, horse racing, rock climbing, etc.).

Same criticism.  A helmet is a visible change in your normal life and routine, unless you wore one ALL THE TIME already.

So if you want to stay safe, think about enlisting others to help complement your own survival instincts and consider wearing a helmet.

NO ONE will EVER care as much about your own life as you yourself.  Do you really want to take the risk that the typical lazy negligience of someone else "caring" about you will not result in your death?

I don't want to be overly critical but I feel sort of bait and switched because you clearly said nothing abnormal or nonordinary could occur.  A freaking helmet or a blind spot shadowerer is not normal behavior.

[MediumTex]

I don't want to be overly critical but I feel sort of bait and switched because you clearly said nothing abnormal or nonordinary could occur.  A freaking helmet or a blind spot shadowerer is not normal behavior.

I said you couldn't change your normal routine.  A person following you as you do your normal routine isn't changing your routine, neither is wearing a helmet as you do your normal routine, though the helmet idea is clearly impractical and was included sort of in jest.

[MediumTex]

NO ONE will EVER care as much about your own life as you yourself.  Do you really want to take the risk that the typical lazy negligence of someone else "caring" about you will not result in your death?

Don't groups of people frequently band together for the purpose of enhancing everyone's security?

[MachineGhost]

Don't groups of people frequently band together for the purpose of enhancing everyone's security?

Purpose and execution are two entirely different things.

[iwealth]

In a public place surrounded by people capable of stopping this guy from hitting his lady, I know at some point over the course of a few days I'm about to be intentionally killed by another person, and I'm still breaking up fights.

I guess if I have that much of a death wish I should be walking around wearing a bicycle helmet at all times.

[MediumTex]

In a public place surrounded by people capable of stopping this guy from hitting his lady, I know at some point over the course of a few days I'm about to be intentionally killed by another person, and I'm still breaking up fights.

I guess if I have that much of a death wish I should be walking around wearing a bicycle helmet at all times.

You're right, but stepping between them was an almost instinctive thing to do.  It didn't appear to put you at any great risk (and at the time of the original altercation it didn't), and the probability of running into the same guy amongst 20,000 or so people later that evening seemed very remote.

[dragoncar]

Tex, I think someone did say hard hat, but on mobile so a bit hard to locate

MG, by your definition, anything you do would be "changing your routine".  Obviously the experiment assumes some degree of change.  The point of the limitation is that you can't just hide in a bunker or leave the country.

I weath, that's a valid concern, but I don't think the details of the encounter are critical to the hypothetical.  There are a lot of crazy people out there, and you could easily offend one just by giving them the "wrong look" (which may se normal to you, or maybe you are just sizing them up as a threat, but to them is offensive).  People get stabbed for this often enough to be plausible.  There's not always a behavioral way to avoid pissing off a drunk (I know from my experience at bars)

[MediumTex]

Tex, I think someone did say hard hat, but on mobile so a bit hard to locate

MG, by your definition, anything you do would be "changing your routine".  Obviously the experiment assumes some degree of change.  The point of the limitation is that you can't just hide in a bunker or leave the country.

I weath, that's a valid concern, but I don't think the details of the encounter are critical to the hypothetical.  There are a lot of crazy people out there, and you could easily offend one just by giving them the "wrong look" (which may se normal to you, or maybe you are just sizing them up as a threat, but to them is offensive).  People get stabbed for this often enough to be plausible.  There's not always a behavioral way to avoid pissing off a drunk (I know from my experience at bars)

The larger point is that I believe a lot of disaster planning places too much emphasis on gear and not enough emphasis on knowledge, and the survivalist mindset often places too much emphasis on independence, and not enough emphasis on interdependence.

People who actually live through severe crises almost always seem to report that effective cooperation and good leadership were the difference makers.

[dualstow]

Tex, I think someone did say hard hat, but on mobile so a bit hard to locate

voila (final line of reply #26)

[iwealth]

I guess it wouldn't have hurt if we had a list of "normal routine" stuff that'd take place over the course of those 5 days. (Just in case you ever plan on doing this again) Tough to anticipate our guy would be attending a professional sports event where it'd have made a ton of sense to spend some of that $500 on a ticket for a friend. This way you could spend the $500 intelligently based on your expected exposure.

[MachineGhost]

You're right, but stepping between them was an almost instinctive thing to do.  It didn't appear to put you at any great risk (and at the time of the original altercation it didn't), and the probability of running into the same guy amongst 20,000 or so people later that evening seemed very remote.

Maybe, but I seriously doubt he was a libertarian.  Because libertarians think carefully about karma before they get involved in dramatic situations.

[MachineGhost]

I guess it wouldn't have hurt if we had a list of "normal routine" stuff that'd take place over the course of those 5 days. (Just in case you ever plan on doing this again) Tough to anticipate our guy would be attending a professional sports event where it'd have made a ton of sense to spend some of that $500 on a ticket for a friend. This way you could spend the $500 intelligently based on your expected exposure.

Yeah and attending a sporting event is not routine either unless you're one of those Animal House-style drunk nutjubs that are into attending sporting events every week or something.  Come to think of it, that's a very good reason not to go to one (and risk getting killed)!

MT, was this based on an actual case?

[Mountaineer]

Tex, I think someone did say hard hat, but on mobile so a bit hard to locate

MG, by your definition, anything you do would be "changing your routine".  Obviously the experiment assumes some degree of change.  The point of the limitation is that you can't just hide in a bunker or leave the country.

I weath, that's a valid concern, but I don't think the details of the encounter are critical to the hypothetical.  There are a lot of crazy people out there, and you could easily offend one just by giving them the "wrong look" (which may se normal to you, or maybe you are just sizing them up as a threat, but to them is offensive).  People get stabbed for this often enough to be plausible.  There's not always a behavioral way to avoid pissing off a drunk (I know from my experience at bars)

The larger point is that I believe a lot of disaster planning places too much emphasis on gear and not enough emphasis on knowledge, and the survivalist mindset often places too much emphasis on independence, and not enough emphasis on interdependence.

People who actually live through severe crises almost always seem to report that effective cooperation and good leadership were the difference makers.

That, baby, is the only way to go.  You hit the nail on the head.  God, baby, God.  The only assurance of long term survival. 

... M

[dragoncar]

I guess it wouldn't have hurt if we had a list of "normal routine" stuff that'd take place over the course of those 5 days. (Just in case you ever plan on doing this again) Tough to anticipate our guy would be attending a professional sports event where it'd have made a ton of sense to spend some of that $500 on a ticket for a friend. This way you could spend the $500 intelligently based on your expected exposure.

Guys, the sporting event is immaterial.  This kind of thing could have happened anywhere people normally go.  Don't get bogged down in the Specific example

[dualstow]

Like I said, Pug, statistically significant.