[ekjhgkejhgk]

Different people are different I guess. Extra expense and inconvenience also wouldn't bother me. Instead I'd be worried that one day this guy is going to kill everyone while we're sleeping. How well do you really know someone? How well do you really know someone that just showed up at your door days before?

[everyone]

I dont think that's a useful way of thinking.. A well known family member could also randomly kill you. Either one is extremely unlikely.

[fragmede]

The random family member, hoping they're in your will, and you having drank all their wine, has more reason to kill you, if we're going there, than some random stranger, not less. In the ridiculously off chance that's even remotely a real possibility.

[rwmj]

We don't give everyone guns, which helps a lot.

[lupusyndrby9]

Isn’t that kind of a lesson learned though? Hitchhiking is illegal for a reason. We don’t let children run as freely outdoors . A lot of states are rewriting or adding exemptions to statutory limits on pressing charges and suing for certain crimes because they happened during a period of time where people assumed you could trust people more. Being cautious and distrustful of strangers with mental issues is a very productive way of thinking. I get people think it’s a fren because fren shaped but give em a couple bucks , and contact a professional to get them help. It sucks there are so many mentally ill people on the streets. That doesn’t make them any less dangerous and the honest truth is there’s a weird line between personal freedom and mental illness that means it’s their right to be a crazy homeless persons. You can clean em up set them up in apartment but you can’t force them to use their benefit payments to pay the rent, keep their apartment clean, or take their medicine. Help them if you can , but please please also don’t forget that people are dangerous. Use some common sense, the last thing anyone needs is more people in the news getting hurt by people with mental illness . It’s just makes it that much harder to get compassionate care for the rest.

[rwmj]

Wait, hitchhiking is illegal (in the US presumably)? (Supplemental question: how do you make hitching illegal?)

In the UK I've met many interesting people both while hitchhiking myself, and while picking up hitchers. It is a practice that seems to have almost entirely disappeared here, not because it's illegal, but I guess because most people now have cars and some "stranger danger" worries.

[lupire]

https://hitchwiki.org/en/United_States_of_America

As for "how": legislature passes a law against it like any other traffic law. Similar to jaywalking or prostitution (soliciting sex on the side of the road).

[ekjhgkejhgk]

You should watch Rambo: First Blood. Great movie.

[aleph_minus_one]

The (US-American) title of the movie is only "First Blood". :-)

Only from the sequel on ("Rambo: First Blood Part II") "Rambo" is part of the film title, see https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rambo_(franchise)...

[Der_Einzige]

It’s sadly the only good Rambo IP.

[lupire]

https://hitchwiki.org/en/United_States_of_America

As for "how": legislature passes a law against it like any other traffic law. Similar to jaywalking

[mmooss]

> a lesson learned

It's certainly a perspective of many, but many others think it's wrong, that children should run freely (there's a whole movement around that), etc.

> please please also don’t forget that people are dangerous

IME from a life spent in cities has taught me that people - strangers, unhoused people, etc. - are great. Most will be happy to to help, have a pleasant conversation, etc. (Read Jane Jacobs who, iirc, examines it in detail.) Humans are social creatures - we don't live alone, we're made to socialize and live in groups.

You need to be a social creature too and read people a little. Obviously some people aren't in a mood to interact; don't be rude or an idiot (they'll probably ignore you). And there's risk to everything - you can die in an accident but still travel by car; you can catch diseases but you still leave your home.

Really, the exception I think I see at a higher rate is apparently wealthy people. Maybe they aren't accustomed to the need to help each other, but there seems to be a culture of anger toward those who might need some help today. Why don't they just support themselves like I do?

[lupusyndrby9]

I know there's been kind of a counter movement about allowing kids to run free ... that doesn't mean it's a good idea. My wife and I survived, but our childhood involved a lot of freedom in the outdoors, and physical abuse. She was hospitalized a few times while intermittently homeless growing up. I was never quite that poor and could run faster, so maybe it's a social class thing? Affluent children can run free in their safe neighborhoods? I wouldn't reccomend it for everyone though, because there are predators everywhere.

My life has experience has taught me by and large people are pretty cool too. It's also taught me that the cool ones and the dangerous ones look exactly the same. Bad guys don't have horns, wear masks carrying large dollar sign bags or look like sihloutted trench coats lurking in a alley. So you gotta ask yourself if it's worth the risk.

I volunteer with emergency services and hope to open a clinic with my wife next year focusing on helping foster children with mental illness who tend to age out the system and fall through the cracks. The subject of mentally ill homeless people hits very close to home and I'm 100% on board with getting the homeless whatever care they need. That does not make the concept of untrained randos inviting mentally ill homeless people into their homes any less of a ridicously bad idea.

[mmooss]

I'm not downplaying what you and your wife went through, which is outrageous. And generally speaking, it's 100x harder as kids.

> I volunteer with emergency services and hope to open a clinic with my wife next year focusing on helping foster children with mental illness who tend to age out the system and fall through the cracks.

That's fantastic, whatever our debate about the details. Thank you.

> you gotta ask yourself if it's worth the risk.

There's always risk in life, as I said above. The level of risk is the key - the likelihood and the amount of harm - and that's debatable.

For kids, by far the most child abuse (as I'm sure you know) is by family and people the family knows. Staying home may be less safe. I just don't see the risks as worse than car accidents and other dangers.

Also, I don't know that I agree "there are predators everywhere", except as a sort of logical truth - predators aren't limited by geography. There are rabid dogs everywhere too. I doubt predators - which, come to think of it, is undefined and sounds like a bogeyman sort of term - are limited by wealth.

But of course, everyone needs to think and act intelligently. You don't let your kid go down the street where the prostitutes or drug dealers hang out.

> the cool ones and the dangerous ones look exactly the same

That's not my experience, but of course nobody can know for sure - that goes for family and coworkers too. Coincidentally, I ended up in coversations today with three apparently unhoused people today. The idea that these people are dangerous somehow is just not plausible. After the third conversation, I made an inside joke I have with the person next to me 'homeless people are so dangerous!'. We both rolled our eyes.

[closewith]

Is hitchhiking illegal in the US?

[amanaplanacanal]

According to the Wikipedia there are laws in some localities, but I don't think they are widespread.

[SpaceNoodled]

Yes.

[cenazoic]

“Overall, 76% of female murders and 56% of male murders were perpetrated by someone known to the victim.”

https://bjs.ojp.gov/female-murder-victims-and-victim-offende...

[ekjhgkejhgk]

> “Overall, 76% of female murders and 56% of male murders were perpetrated by someone known to the victim.”

> https://bjs.ojp.gov/female-murder-victims-and-victim-offende...

Lets say M is "being murdered" and A is "stranger in the house", "not A" is "person known to the victim in the house".

The numbers you're quoting say that P(not A | M) is large, implying that P(A | M) is small.

However, to make a decision on whether to let someone in, I care about P(M | A).

You need to exercise that critical thinking more. You just heard someone say "the murders are known to the victim" and you instantly dropped your common sense.

[card_zero]

I don't think statistics are relevant at all. Suppose the stranger is wielding a kopesh, an ancient Egyptian sword. What we want to know is not "how many murderers use kopeshes?" (none of them), but "is this guy a murderer?", and that seems in line with what you're saying about statistics. However, the question "how many wielders of kopeshes are murderers?" is also irrelevant, and the answer is still none of them. Similarly, "how many strangers in your house have been murderers?" is irrelevant, even if the answer is "all of them so far". Perhaps you only ever let one stranger into your house, and once inside she killed somebody with an arquebus, and you said "never again" - but that would be paranoia. Perhaps you look at country-wide statistics for the average stranger (these aren't kept), but you are not personally country-wide, and the specific stranger is not an average. What's more, if you befriend the stranger, what statistic do you want to use then? The thing to do is reason, not count. I think the 76%, 56% statistic (although irrelevant to a decision) is attempting to say a lot of murderers are motivated by interpersonal relationships, you know, and get you to think about what a given person might be up to, or might want, and the extent to which you can even tell, and the value of risking the unknown.

[ekjhgkejhgk]

Nothing that you said prevents one from discussing models and making estimates.

All you're saying is you don't like my model (presumably because you'd like more inputs to the estimation?). Ok. You might not like my model, but at my comment on conditional probabilities was correct. The person that I was responding to wasn't that.

[scotty79]

> Similarly, "how many strangers in your house have been murderers?" is irrelevant, even if the answer is "all of them so far".

That doesn't sound very sane.

[ekjhgkejhgk]

Complete word salad.

[scotty79]

I think what he was trying to say is that the next coin toss can't be predicted based on previous one, which is true. However history of results up to now can tell a lot about where you'll end up and with what probability if you keep tossing the same coin. And that's what really matters in life. Even in real world gambling.

[bluechair]

Damn. Amazing response.

[derektank]

Someone living in your home is known to you

[oulipo2]

Sure, but in France we have about 100/150 feminicides per year. You're much more likely to be killed by your (seemingly "sane") partner in a bout of fury over a breakup than by some random autistic guy

[bondarchuk]

Bayes' law, many more people have romantic partners than former homeless living with them.

[ekjhgkejhgk]

Thank you!! I just commented the same thing, but people will eat any meme you throw at them, it's quite shocking.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46384274

One thing that spending time talking to people online has taught me is how often what people say is just mindlessly repeating something they heard somewhere.

It's also fantastic how I find your response more persuasive than mine, while using fewer words. Well done.

[oulipo2]

That wasn't the point of the answer. The point is "How well do you really know someone?". You really don't. Many people live with partners who end up killing them, although they thought they trusted them.

Besides, "Bayes law" is not on your side on this one, it's well-known that "regular people" are over-represented in homicide, and "autistic people" or even "schizophrenic people" are under-represented and are mostly harmless

[bondarchuk]

All of that may very well be but correct reasoning is a prerequisite to talking about any of these points.

[lurk2]

> it's well-known that "regular people" are over-represented in homicide, and "autistic people" or even "schizophrenic people" are under-represented and are mostly harmless

It is?

[oulipo2]

It is, indeed. It's a wrongly-held belief that there is more violent behaviors and crimes from schizophrenic people, etc, but the reverse is true

[lurk2]

Do you have any literature to support this?

[ekjhgkejhgk]

You confused P(A|B) with P(B|A), stop doubling down.