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I watch fight videos to remind myself that the world is dangerous.
You’re right that it has to do with me becoming conservative.
I was liberal until one night I was attacked by a drunk rando. Traumatized me. Woke me up. Made me realize how fucking deeply horrifying violence is. Armed myself, because I’m worth it.
I didn’t make any conscious decision to switch, but I remember the exact moment I realized how fundamental the second amendment is. It was when I tried to buy pepper spray and was told I needed a permit. This was a homeless guy who’d just been attacked, being told he needed government paperwork to get a weapon.
I would explain more except this wef wef app doesn’t scroll correctly so I can’t see what I’m typing.
But yeah. I’m fascinated by violence now. And now that it’s been a decade since that attack, I find myself starting to feel safe again. Which is a very bad thing, because the world is NOT safe and falsely believing it was nearly ended my life. So I watch videos of guys getting slammed into concrete, despite the fact I hate it, to remind myself how fragile I am.
(scrolling seems to be fixed now?)
So that’s why I watch videos depicting street violence. And that’s how it’s related to my conservativism. Definitely not a coincidence.
Long story short, I’d say my being leftist ended the day I discovered how scary reality actually is, in a visceral and real way that no video or description of violence ever could show me. Once I realized what was at stake, I started thinking clearly about problems like violence (I couldn’t afford to pick ideas based on their level of pleasantness anymore), and realized that being ready for it is the only way to prevent it.
— Albert Einstein, theoretical physicist
You know you can be a liberal and still own a gun, right? And sure, most liberals don't want Joe from off the street to walk in and buy a gun with no further investigation, but most don't want to ban weapons outright. Guns should be in the right hands, in the right circumstances. You talk as if believing the the 2nd amendment immediately makes you conservative.
No you read as if that’s what I said, because I’m categorized by two bits of information in your head.
What I said was that encountering violence made me a conservative.
Conservatism is wholly driven by irrational fear so this makes perverse sense.
What you label as irrational fear, I label as rational fear.
The difference is that I acknowledge that the thing I fear is possible, and likely enough to matter; you believe that it is impossible because it's not happened to you.
I wanted to label people who talked about danger as crazy too. It was easier than acknowledging the danger. Then the danger manifested, and I could no longer avoid the awareness of it.
Just like teenagers speed around in cars, "knowing" that it's dangerous but never really grokking it unless they kill a pedestrian or something, people have an ability to just ... not connect the dots about the fact that a person bigger than you can literally hold you down and keep hitting you until you die.
99.99% of the time you drive recklessly, you don't kill anyone. Then one day you kill a pedestrian and it's suddenly real, in a way you were in denial about before.
99.99% of the time the person in front of you isn't gonna kill you. But it only takes ONE person out of the hundreds of thousands you meet, to take decades off your life on a whim.
But if you have the ability to just say "that's crazy" to that, you will. I would have too, before reality broke my lucky streak and forced me to consider the other category of experience.
Buddy I have most assuredly lost fights before.
And yes, I bet on the 99.99% all the time. as you so notably mentioned about cars, they're far riskier than just about any fight you'd ever realistically get in.
I've been in multiple car accidents as well. I still drive cars L.
And I still go out my front door and walk amongst strangers bigger than me.
The question is do you wear your seatbelt.
Also have you ever been jumped? Ie did you ever get into a fight with a stranger with no squaring up or indication a fight was about to start? Have you ever lost one of those?
Because I’ve lost fights too. Never bothered me in the slightest. But a fight I didn’t choose, that’s a whole new thing.
Yes I was bullied til I had my big growth spurt when I hit college. I have most definitely been jumped
How did you survive it? In my case two other strangers were there to pull him away. Otherwise I would have been dead or a vegetable. All I could think in that moment while he kicked my head repeatedly was that I was gonna end up in the brain trauma ward I had worked in. I’d seen those guys recovering and it was horrible.
Did your attacker just rough you up a little then stop? Did someone else save you?
Depends on which fight you're talking about. All of the above for me, including people pulling someone off. I've also been the guy pulled off a downed person.
Most people won't be trying to kill you. Anger vents quickly
So if you have been in a situation where a stranger jumped you, and you would have died if not for the chance intervention of some strangers, how in the world are you okay with just letting that happen next time it happens? What if next time there’s no one to save you? Your plan is to just let your life end there?
I do not believe it is likely enough to happen that I feel the need to defend myself with a weapon at all times.
My life isn't ruled by fear. This is my original point here.
My life isn’t ruled by fear either. Perhaps for you, carrying a weapon would be accompanied by fear. For me it’s not.
Ok
Just throwing this out there, but while this is the direction you went to deal with the trauma you experienced, do you feel like it's the healthiest path? I have a loved one with PTSD from trauma. There are many ways to deal with it, but I dare guess that therapy (with the right therapist for you) may give you better, healthier tools.
I only wish you well, and hope you find peace.
I’ve done plenty of therapy. The weapon is not to deal with the trauma, but to deal with the real possibility that someone bigger than me might decide I deserve a beating. If I disagree with that person, the only way to stop them is the weapon.
I don’t want to be traumatized again. I’m taking steps to arm myself because I now see what my naive non-exposure to violence allowed me to ignore: that the world is a place of danger where my body can be hurt by another human who decides to hurt my body.
The guy was only slightly bigger than me, but the fight was over in less than five seconds. After the fight was over, the beating began. A beating I was powerless to stop.
I carry a weapon for the purpose of being in charge of whether that ever happens to me.
The trauma I am dealing with through things that are effective with trauma.
The weapon is not a trauma treatment. It is a rational response to the danger of being around other people, just as a seat belt is a rational response to the danger of driving.
The difference between the danger of driving and the danger of being around people is that the danger of being around other people is horrifying. Not scary, not terrifying, but horrifying. It is deeply horrible to acknowledge that the people around you can turn into monsters, that they can become as deadly as a cobra or a spider.
We don’t feel this horror when contemplating the danger of cars, because we have no evolved instincts about cars. They’re mega dangerous, but we easily ignore that danger on a visceral level because we didn’t evolve in an environment where a toyota corolla might kill you.
We easily ignore the danger of people, ie we know it in our heads but not in our guts, just like with cars, but for a different reason. With humans the reason is that it’s horrifying knowledge. It’s dark, it’s ugly. It’s not something want to look at.
But once you are forced to look at it, eg like when you experience the violence yourself, you are forced to think about it. And if you think about it, it’s just as foolish and negligent to be around strangers without being armed, as it is to drive and not wear a seatbelt.
Before the encounter with violence, I was on the fence. I could see arguments both ways. Like “well, the weapon could stop an attacker but it could also be an unhealthy attachment …”.
But it’s no longer balanced for me. I’ve realized the danger of grievous injury or death is orders of magnitude more important than the potential I might get weird about the weapon.
Like, would you recommend a person avoid seat belts in order to avoid unhealthy coping with their trauma from a car accident?
The misconception with weapons is that they enable violence. But this guy was unarmed. All he had was some shoes. Other than that it was all just his body and his decision to hurt me.
I love how well written and thoughtfully worded your response is, yet it's still downvoted by the ideologically impaired
This is a person who got his ass kicked once and now fears the entire world. If it wasn't thoughtfully worded, you'd see right through it for the absurd knee-jerk reaction it is.
Yeah, the reaction is pretty extreme and makes me sad that it seems like therapy didn't help them through it.
I don't see where or how being legally armed with reason is something absurd or extreme and invite you all to explain.
It’s just too easy to buy into the “danger is a myth” mindset until you are forced out of it.
I understand you brother. Hope things are much better now