Courageous or Stupid?

Off Topic
21

[quote]julia87 wrote:
My father is a commercial real estate developer so recently he got a call about a armed robbery at one of his shopping centers. A guy had pulled up to a woman coming out from the grocery store, aimed a gun at her and told her to give him her purse. She refused. He drove off scared.
[/quote]

Is it stupid to put your life on the line for a replaceable material possession? Yes.

Is it stupid to threaten a persons life in exchange for a small material possession with no intent of carrying the threat out? Yes.

The woman was a hell of a lot braver than the robber, that’s what I get out of this. He figured he could scare her, and wasn’t expecting her to refuse.

Some people are just stupid, and don’t realize that they shouldn’t make threats they aren’t ready to carry out. Maybe this woman could tell the guy wasn’t ready to go to prison for the rest of his life for the $20.00 in her purse, maybe she was just dumb. No matter what though, she was the brave one in that incident.

22

I don’t know who said this, but I think it’s very true: “You’re never truely free until you’re free from the fear of death.”

23

[quote]etaco wrote:

I’m sure you’ve had stuff stolen from you before as we all have, so I’ll ask, how did it make you feel? Did you feel violated? Maybe a bit helpless that you couldn’t stop or even find who did it? Is it safe to say you felt a bit victimized? I know when I’ve had stuff stolen, my anger and desire for revenge are far out of proportion to the value of the objects lost because the theft represents far more.

Taking an extreme example, one could look at a rape scenario and say that a woman should just give in and not fight the attacker because if she just lets the rapist have his way then she probably won’t suffer nearly the physical trauma as if she fights. This perspective would be considered ludicrous as a rape represents the ultimate in personal and psychological violation. If a woman died fighting off a rapist, no one would question the wisdom of her defense.

While the magnitude of trauma for these two events isn’t even on the same page, the basic principle still applies to some degree; one’s psychological health is of immense importance and value. Now to be clear, I’m not arguing that one should fight to the death over a five dollar bill, but I understand if someone chooses to stand and fight over the principle, the integrity’s and sovereignty of one’s own personal space.

Speaking of which, if anyone I’m not dating tries to take food from my plate, they can expect at best a slap upside the head (family and friends) and at worst a fork in the eye (complete strangers). Am I the only one who gets completely irrational when it comes to my food?[/quote]

" the integrity and sovereignty of one’s own personal space."

This about sums up my post.
You understood me exactly! Your whole post is excellent - I couldn’t have put it better.

And no, you are not the only one…specially after an intense workout my food is my integrity!!

24

[quote]John S. wrote:
Theres a big difference you can die for your money(like she may have) or you can die to give freedom? I wont die for money but you can be damn sure April 24th my ass will be in the army putting my ass on the line for freedom.[/quote]

Exactly why I suggested there are different levels of courage based on what your doing it for.

25

I’ve always considered courage the ability to stand for your convictions regardless of the context and despite the consequences. To that end, standing up to the mugger could be considered a courageous act depending on her personal ethics.

Actions like that are usually automatic but do stem from your internal values. A mother that runs into a burning building to save her kids may not go through a rational process of decision making, but she is acting out her own value structure (the kids being of more worth than her own safety).

So the mugger scenario could be from the lady feeling violated and expressing her view of freedom, or she maybe she’s materialistic and was thinking of the money, or maybe she took one too many AAs and was on a roid rage…only she can say.

But when the shit hits the fan and you are moving on automatic, you will play out your personal ethics in fast forward. Me, I would have given up the money because it’s just not worth it. Most thieves are not Lex Luthor and I know sooner or later karma is a bitch and he’ll end up getting butt-slammed by Bubba when he eventually gets caught.

As for Pat Tillman I do think what he did was something to look up to and aspire to. Not necessarily because he was serving the country, although that commendable, but mainly because he chose the path that he truly wanted to follow in the face of a lot of exterior influences. That takes a lot of character.

26

Is bravery not defined as fighting a battle you know you could possibly lose.

I think that bravey is being fully aware of all possible outcomes and acting inspite of them.

Whereas stupidity is a reaction where you don’t consider the conseqences. Of course it could be argued that pulling someone fro m a burning car is stupid AND brave.

So basically I don’t know where I’m going with this!

27

[quote]Omnivore wrote:
I also thought Alpha F was on to something. At least, I could see the basis for the argument.

I’ve had a number of these kinds of discussions as my sister is a brilliant PhD with the Street Smarts of a toaster. She’s a college professor with 6 kids. I’m not sure she knows where babies come from. lol

Something else that caught my attention:
Forgive me . . . there is a 9 year old gay child on “Ugly Betty”?? Is such a thing possible?? Forgive my ignorance but I have three kids that are 10, 8, and 6 and I don’t perceive them as even sexually aware.

I know that my two girls prefer to play with other girls simply because they want their dolls to “talk and shop” while my son and his friends want the dolls to become missiles and destroy the davenport.

How does a 9 year old determine they are gay??

I mean, I knew I liked girls in the 4th grade but I don’t think I would have thought to declare my sexuality as hetero OR homo.

That was over 35 years ago. Are things that different in grade school now?[/quote]

No. Thats my point. My sister was making the arguement that the batch of kids coming from her generation will choose to be flamboyantly gay from seeing other kids act like it, even when she hasnt seen the show and doesnt know the boy isnt going around saying “im gay!” he is just very interested in the fashion industry-so people assume he is. Actually, I think she is so traditional she doesnt want gender roles to be blurred. She wants pink and blues.
When I was little I was making mermaid Barbie into mutilated Barbie and gluing her to my brothers plastic tree frog container. I came out fine. She hates me.

28

[quote]Hanley wrote:
Is bravery not defined as fighting a battle you know you could possibly lose.

I think that bravey is being fully aware of all possible outcomes and acting inspite of them.

Whereas stupidity is a reaction where you don’t consider the conseqences. Of course it could be argued that pulling someone fro m a burning car is stupid AND brave.

So basically I don’t know where I’m going with this![/quote]

I think the problem is that people imagine themselves and our species in general as being fundamentally rational when this certainly is not the case- at least deliberately on a conscious level. I think most people seem to feel that conscious thought allows them to conquer their instincts, not realizing that their instincts manifest themselves through their conscious thoughts. Just because a person makes the conscious decision to ignore one instinctual drive doesn’t mean that they aren’t acting out others in the process.

I think I need a thesaurus.

29

[quote]Alpha F wrote:
etaco wrote:

I’m sure you’ve had stuff stolen from you before as we all have, so I’ll ask, how did it make you feel? Did you feel violated? Maybe a bit helpless that you couldn’t stop or even find who did it? Is it safe to say you felt a bit victimized? I know when I’ve had stuff stolen, my anger and desire for revenge are far out of proportion to the value of the objects lost because the theft represents far more.

Taking an extreme example, one could look at a rape scenario and say that a woman should just give in and not fight the attacker because if she just lets the rapist have his way then she probably won’t suffer nearly the physical trauma as if she fights. This perspective would be considered ludicrous as a rape represents the ultimate in personal and psychological violation. If a woman died fighting off a rapist, no one would question the wisdom of her defense.

While the magnitude of trauma for these two events isn’t even on the same page, the basic principle still applies to some degree; one’s psychological health is of immense importance and value. Now to be clear, I’m not arguing that one should fight to the death over a five dollar bill, but I understand if someone chooses to stand and fight over the principle, the integrity’s and sovereignty of one’s own personal space.

Speaking of which, if anyone I’m not dating tries to take food from my plate, they can expect at best a slap upside the head (family and friends) and at worst a fork in the eye (complete strangers). Am I the only one who gets completely irrational when it comes to my food?

" the integrity and sovereignty of one’s own personal space."

This about sums up my post.
You understood me exactly! Your whole post is excellent - I couldn’t have put it better.

And no, you are not the only one…specially after an intense workout my food is my integrity!!

[/quote]

I see. So thats basically what AlphaF meant when talking of freedom, which I understood and agreed with, but this is even more in depth. I wasnt digging into the issue hard enough. So it is the act and what it is representing to your principles and your reaction to how that affects you.

But doesnt that mean killing a person is a sort of bravery also? What I mean is, the act of violating. Doesnt that qualify as a act of courage if it is based on somebody who violated your principles before and now you want to go cut their head off? So, the rapist and the one being raped would both be brave, but with different connotations because one is viewed positively and one negatively…

30

Well, I find that the woman’s refusal to hand over her purse somehow instilling her gun toting attacker with such fear that he decided to flee a little hard to swallow (read: ridiculous).

In a one on one confrontation, having a gun pointed at your opponent at close range gives you a significant, dare I say over-fucking-whelming advantage- it should be noted here that life isn’t a fucking Steven Seagal movie, so you can forget about roundhouse kicking the gun from your assailant’s hand. 9 times out of 10, a civilian would get their ass handed to them should they attempt to disarm a mugger ALREADY POINTING A GUN AT THEM who had an honest-to-God willingness to shoot/kill for their target’s money and to protect himself.

Had the man genuinely entered into that confrontation with the mentality that he would shoot her if she refused, everyone here would be writing a eulogy instead of praise. As it is, she lucked out- he was probably just some punk kid with no real balls.

That being said, maybe she was brave. Maybe she was pigheaded. Maybe she was simply greedy. You can dress it up, play it down, argue whether or not she was positioned in her “righteous freedom” or instead positioned with her head in the sand/up her ass. Without knowing what was going through her head at that time, you can’t say for sure either way.

As for Pat- my brother is in the military, so I have nothing but love and respect for all of them.

31

[quote]julia87 wrote:

I see. So thats basically what AlphaF meant when talking of freedom, which I understood and agreed with, but this is even more in depth. I wasnt digging into the issue hard enough. So it is the act and what it is representing to your principles and your reaction to how that affects you.

But doesnt that mean killing a person is a sort of bravery also? What I mean is, the act of violating. Doesnt that qualify as a act of courage if it is based on somebody who violated your principles before and now you want to go cut their head off? So, the rapist and the one being raped would both be brave, but with different connotations because one is viewed positively and one negatively…[/quote]

Bravery isn’t a absolute quality, rather it’s a label we apply to an assortment of somehow similar actions which we admire on some level. Depending on how you define the the word, you could include or exclude whomever or whatever actions you want, based on context or moral judgment. I’d choose to say that the rapist was audacious whereas the would-be victim was brave since I think “brave” tends to have a much more positive connotation.

32

[quote]conner wrote:
Well, I find that the woman’s refusal to hand over her purse somehow instilling her gun toting attacker with such fear that he decided to flee a little hard to swallow (read: ridiculous).

In a one on one confrontation, having a gun pointed at your opponent at close range gives you a significant, dare I say over-fucking-whelming advantage- it should be noted here that life isn’t a fucking Steven Seagal movie, so you can forget about roundhouse kicking the gun from your assailant’s hand. 9 times out of 10, a civilian would get their ass handed to them should they attempt to disarm a mugger ALREADY POINTING A GUN AT THEM who had an honest-to-God willingness to shoot/kill for their target’s money and to protect himself.

Had the man genuinely entered into that confrontation with the mentality that he would shoot her if she refused, everyone here would be writing a eulogy instead of praise. As it is, she lucked out- he was probably just some punk kid with no real balls.

That being said, maybe she was brave. Maybe she was pigheaded. Maybe she was simply greedy. You can dress it up, play it down, argue whether or not she was positioned in her “righteous freedom” or instead positioned with her head in the sand/up her ass. Without knowing what was going through her head at that time, you can’t say for sure either way.

As for Pat- my brother is in the military, so I have nothing but love and respect for all of them.[/quote]

I’ve replied too much to this thread already, but the act of defiance in this case wasn’t quite as extreme as I think you make it out to be. The woman didn’t decide to fight the mugger; all she did pass the decision back to the attacker, forcing him to decide whether he wanted to risk his life -in prison- over a stupid purse. The only gamble she made was that he would behave rationally, in his own best interests, in this single instance.

33

[quote]etaco wrote:
I’ve replied too much to this thread already, but the act of defiance in this case wasn’t quite as extreme as I think you make it out to be.[/quote]

a) Keep replying, I like what you’ve been writing
b) What I am trying to say is that I have trouble seeing her act of defiance as something that scared her attacker into fleeing.

Julia mentioned that her act of defiance caused the attacker to “drive off scared”. I am sure that she lucked out and instead of getting a violent mugger who was, in fact, willing to cause her harm for her money, she got some idiot kid who was hoping that just flashing the gun would be enough.

c) Every single fucking time I look at your avatar, I laugh.

[quote]etaco wrote:
The woman didn’t decide to fight the mugger; all she pass the decision back to the attacker, forcing him to decide whether he wanted to risk his life -in prison- over a stupid purse. The only gamble she made was that he would behave rationally, in his own best interests, in this single instance.[/quote]

I would agree, but I would say that her gambling on a criminal behaving in a rational, thoughtful manner in the heat of the moment over a stupid purse was just moronic. Especially since he was holding a gun. Had he been unarmed, or perhaps with a knife, a violent decision on his part would most likely not have lead to as much harm as him shooting her at close range. He was gambling with his freedom to live in the outside world, she was putting her life on the line.

34

[quote]conner wrote:
Well, I find that the woman’s refusal to hand over her purse somehow instilling her gun toting attacker with such fear that he decided to flee a little hard to swallow (read: ridiculous).
[/quote]

Oh yeah, he totally wasnt fearful, just decided to press the accelerator a bit way too hard after it happened and nearly mowed down this fat lady coming out of Ross.
Sorry, didnt include that because I thought it unimportant to what I was writing about. … … … …
But, you know, I try to mow down fat ladies unintentionally all the time due to impatience so maybe Im just fearful of the fat ladies.

35

[quote]conner wrote:

I would agree, but I would say that her gambling on a criminal behaving in a rational, thoughtful manner in the heat of the moment over a stupid purse was just moronic.

[/quote]

I guess this is probably the crux of our disagreement on this issue. Unless the mugger was the type to punch wildly at the air while talking to his imaginary friend- ok, maybe that’s setting the bar too high/low- I don’t think the decision is that “out there”. I think so much of it depends on getting a read on the assailant that one could only get in person. Most street criminals have poor decision making and long term planning abilities as well as a tendency towards impulsiveness, but few would qualify as being seriously nuts, beyond maybe sociopathic. I think the proportion of that population who would escalate straight to shooting the victim would be fairly small.

Getting back to the issue of reading the individual, I’d bet a large sum of money that the assailant was behaving like he was scarred shitless, as if it were his first time, rather than acting like a seasoned killer. I would say that whether the woman was a moron or not depends largely on where in this spectrum the assailant fell.

36

[quote]julia87 wrote:
Oh yeah, he totally wasnt fearful, just decided to press the accelerator a bit way too hard after it happened and nearly mowed down this fat lady coming out of Ross.[/quote]

Adrenaline is a funny thing, isn’t it? So is that whole wanting to get away from where you just pulled a gun on someone.

Something tells me that had he actually stolen the purse, he wouldn’t have gone for the highlight reel with a slow motion victory lap around the parking lot.

[quote]julia87 wrote:
But, you know, I try to mow down fat ladies unintentionally all the time due to impatience so maybe Im just fearful of the fat ladies.
[/quote]

Well who doesn’t? It’s cow tipping for the younger generation.

37

[quote]etaco wrote:
I think so much of it depends on getting a read on the assailant that one could only get in person. Most street criminals have poor decision making and long term planning abilities as well as a tendency towards impulsiveness, but few would qualify as being seriously nuts, beyond maybe sociopathic. I think the proportion of that population who would escalate straight to shooting the victim would be fairly small.[/quote]

A read based upon being surprised, scared shitless and staring down the barrel of a gun, with, what? Seconds to react? I would’ve given up the damn purse. But, then again, they don’t really flatter my shape anyhow so it would’ve been for the best.

Even if he didn’t decide to shoot her (the fact that he was holding a large, heavy metal object would give him a distinct advantage over a woman should he try to take it by other means)- the fact that she was willing to bet her life/wellbeing to hold onto a few credit cards, cash, a tampon, and assorted makeup products is ridiculous in my mind.

I can only hope she refused out of principle, otherwise she’s just an idiot.

[quote]etaco wrote:
Getting back to the issue of reading the individual, I’d bet a large sum of money that the assailant was behaving like he was scarred shitless, as if it were his first time, rather than acting like a seasoned killer. I would say that whether the woman was a moron or not depends largely on where in this spectrum the assailant fell. [/quote]

Exactly. We really don’t know enough about what went on other than the fact that she refused to give up her purse, and he ran off. Whether this makes her brave, stupid, or some combination of the two is just speculation on our part, unless she says what was going through her mind.

I think Donut62 made a a good point, though, when he said, “The line between bravery and stupidity is usually crossed based on the success of the act.”

38

[quote]conner wrote:
I think Donut62 made a a good point, though, when he said, “The line between bravery and stupidity is usually crossed based on the success of the act.”[/quote]

Assuming that we’re treating them as more or less mutually exclusive, I would still define that line by the utility of the act rather than outcome. The problem is that while it is easy to quantify the value of of the purse and its contents, it is quite a bit harder to do the same with one’s psychological health. How much is it worth to a person not to be made to feel victimized? That’s the key variable here.

39

[quote]HardcoreHorn wrote:
Don’t pick your battles, that’s lame. Fight all of them. Existence after death is just as awesome (probably more awesome) than existence during life. So do what is right, not what is best for you. [/quote]

What if you are wrong?

Rhetorical, don’t answer.

40

[quote]devilBASTARDdog wrote:
I don’t know who said this, but I think it’s very true: “You’re never truely free until you’re free from the fear of death.”[/quote]

You’re never truly free until you’re free from fears. Why stop at fear of death?

Anyway, there’s also something known as “risk assessment” that’s worth considering. The feelings of being robbed at gunpoint probably pale in comparison to those of being shot. Then again, if you’re dead, you don’t have any feelings, do you?