[kristiandupont]

I am curious: do you consider yourself to be on the left or right end of the political spectrum?

I ask because even if your message is not explicitly political, it indicates to me that you might be leaning to the right and I am curious about what the root-differences between that and someone like myself who is probably more left leaning really are. Clearly it's related to fear, but I have fears too (like climate change or fascism). It's really interesting to me why people fear one but not the other, in each direction. It feels like there is some sort of fundamental psychological principle that decides whether you are one or the other.

[pessimizer]

I agree with everything said here and I'm unambiguously on the very far left. Its just observational. Sometimes it's dangerous to intervene. Sometimes the people who intervene get killed. That's just a fact. If somebody is drowning on the Chicago side of Lake Michigan when the waves are bad, if you jump in to help you're 80% going to die. You're as likely to die as the person you're trying to help. You might not even help their odds, they may manage to swim back and you will still drown. If a pimp hits a prostitute, and you intervene, he may kill you. In some places, he probably is going to kill you. And he's not going to kill her. He's going to kill you.

I don't know how to convince someone that happens a lot. It happens a lot, though. A lot of people still intervene, especially if everything happens quickly, and just get killed. But most people I think need to start sharing looks with strangers, figuring each other out and who looks like they can think of a plan, and who might be able to fight, and hope that you time and execute well enough with your new confederates so none of you get seriously hurt.

Somebody can be Islamaphobically screaming at two south asian women on the train, maybe hit one of them, and you and a couple other strangers get up to protect them, and that person stabs all three of you to death.